Chapter 16: Charted Among Liars II
< intercomm dialogue >
|| system ||
|| 'AI speaking' ||
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[Human Region – Zone 5, Cyber Department Main Office]
Killian decided to tag-team with Kurt to unravel whatever mystery these two boys could find together. Normally he'd invite me but this time he didn't.
I think Killian is just really impressed with Kurt's technology and his programs that he chose the easy way to do research.
"Got any results yet?" Killian asked.
"No."
"What about the connection between Felix and the zombies we found at the crime scene?"
"Stop pressuring me!"
Killian raises his hands up and sat back to the seat he borrowed, spinning it around to occupy himself.
"You know in our line of work, pressure is always there." Killian shared.
"Pressure yes, but pestering me for results every minute, no." Kurt mumbled.
"Fine, fine."
They both heard a beep from Kurt's computer and Killian is back on his feet, standing behind Kurt like some supervisor he feels he is.
"Take my chair too why don't you?" Kurt announced.
Killian is really good at ignoring comments though. Bel and I hate it when he does that. "What does this mean? There's a red notif here."
"We found a match. Several matches actually." Kurt says and pulls up the results.
"The missing contestants from the arena. The same arena Felix is in."
"Yes and I have something more."
"Oh yeah?"
Kurt types on his keyboard to switch screens and pulling up a different software. "Your boss asked me to search for connections between targeted locations."
"She's not my boss, okay she's generally everyone's Captain."
It's Kurt's turn to ignore. "Administrators, security guards, keycards, who has access to this and that."
"Yeah, yeah, skip the mumbo jumbo already."
What is an example of sarcasm? They are getting along just fine.
Nailed it.
"Lieutenant Giles Vosler." Kurt did his magic again and filtered the search results to what the common denominator is between our Lt. Vosler to the crime scenes.
His image popped at the center of the screen and branching out the highlighted mutual pieces of information from their 7 crime scenes.
"He has access to literally any building in Zone 1." Kurt summarizes. "And other restricted buildings outside of it."
"The burned building a few weeks ago, it's a guest house for victims to be identified before being transferred to their respective zones."
Killian felt the rush of being able to connect the dots.
"Your Captain is pretty accurate with adding time logs, ins and outs with her report. I managed to connect some crime scenes to him directly."
Kurt highlights the common timeframe when Lt. Vosler enters and exits a building.
"But the punchline of all this is that; there is a mole in the Militia." Kurt summed up, straight to the point.
"Huh... well... if he's a guy in the ranks, I doubt he's doing this alone."
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"Get up!"
A man pulls Hilde from the pack's hold. He drags her behind him before he fired his shotgun at them.
Hilde is still dazed after her near-death experience. Her wounds still fresh and throbbing. She heard the gunfire again and the sound rang in her ears.
She forced herself up. The zombies had rubbed their scent on her effectively that even if she's far from them she can still smell them on herself.
"Come on, this way!" the man grabs her by her injured arm and pushes her into the next room.
He closes the door in haste and locks it. He took a breather and so did Hilde. She really thought it was over for her.
"Thanks." she managed to tell him between breaths.
"How did you manage to trap yourself in that room?" he asked.
"I was pushed. Don't ask."
The man nods at her. "I'm Isaac." he stretched his hand towards her.
"Hilde."
Now that she could breathe calmly, she took the time to examine her injuries. There fingernails really left deep marks on her limbs.
"Like hickeys gone wrong, right?" Isaac tried to joke.
But Hilde couldn't bring herself to laugh because she's worried of turning into one of them. "I've been bit. I think."
She sat down to check her legs. Their fingernails dug through her pants even. "Let me see."
"No, no, I'm fine." Hilde does not dare lift her pants to peek and pushes him away. "Just tell me how to get out of here cowboy."
Isaac scoffed. "Okay well, I've been running around this abyss for days and I found no exits."
Since he stood near, Hilde seized the opportunity to survey him. Isaac is covered in dirt and sweat, wore a cowboy hat with matching boots.
His white polo folded up his elbows stained by dirt, dust and blood. He held a shotgun and carries a worn-out slingbag.
"You've been here for days? Just how big is this place?"
"Big." Isaac's answer came fast. "Lots of tunnels. Pathways. Doors. Traps."
"What is this, hangman?" Hilde teased. "Okay, where have you not been to? Let's try there."
"Just so we're clear, I'm not a cowboy." Isaac says before he stands up to lead the way.
"Uh-huh."
"I just found these boots and the hat from one of my ventures here. You should hear the whole story." he offered.
"Okay, did you pick up your gun along the way too? Like this is all some sort of video game where you conveniently pick up items you need?" she humored him.
Isaac chuckled. "Something like that. Do you play?"
"No, just this nerd that I know. He plays."
"Ah."
Hilde catches up to him, limping as she walked side by side with him. Isaac couldn't ignore her struggle to walk.
"Do you want to treat them? I have first-aid here." he offers.
"Why didn't you say anything in the first place!"
"You practically pushed me out of your way."
"Well hurry and treat me, I'm bleeding." Hilde exclaimed and Isaac found himself smiling at how silly their conversation is.
They both sat down on the ground, thanks to the small bulbs providing dim lights in the tunnels they aren't walking blindly in the dark.
"If we can't get out of here, if you have a phone or a radio or something, that's good too." Hilde brought up.
"Tried calling for help but it doesn't reach the outside. Just kept on ringing and ringing."
He unzips his bag to pull out his medkit.
"Why do you have a medkit? Also conveniently found on your little venture?" Hilde couldn't help but bring it up.
"As a matter of fact, yes." Isaac doesn't mind riding her humor.
He hasn't spoken to an actual person in the times that he's been trapped there. Being there for 'days' is more of a guess than an actual statement.
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