Chapter 6: Deathly Silence

Liam woke up. The sleep refreshed him from the adventures last night. He noticed that Arthur was missing, but he thought he had classes earlier. After taking a shower and a quick snack Liam left to go to his bio-engineering class. He took one of the endless elevators made especially for his dorm area. The schools were designed like gigantic houses for all students to live in them. Children were separated from their parents when they reach a certain age and are put in a dorm area to live until they graduate. The dorm areas were enormous - around two thousand students could live in one area, and a school usually had six of them.

From the elevator, Liam looked at the giant main hall that was overflowing with people running left and right. When he reached the ground floor, he took one of the moving lanes, which took him to the department where his classroom was.

The day for Liam was very peaceful - his classes went normally, had a nice lunch, met new people, and signed up for some after-school activities. He was slowly starting to fit in. Liam joined a bio-robotics club and went to the first gathering they had in the afternoon. They studied the human body and how humanoid robots are designed, how their artificial brain functions, and how the human brain is much more powerful than they thought. After the bio-robotics class, Liam went to the dining hall, ate, and came back to his dorm room. To his surprise, Arthur was still absent. Maybe he is hanging out with friends, thought Liam. Anyway, he got homework and he had to think about his project for the end of the year. Liam turned on the old audio system that Arthur showed him, and music started filling the quiet room, while Liam carried on with his daily tasks.

- Good evening Hillman. - said a monotonous voice in the dark meeting room.

- Good evening.

- We heard that your team had an accident this early morning. Would you mind giving us an explanation?

- One of our transporter trucks has been attacked. The stock was not damaged, but our two drivers were...

- We don't care about the drivers. We want to know how ShiruEto found out about the truck and what was inside of it! - said in a more serious tone the voice.

They are pretty angry, thought Hillman - Well we don't know how he found out about the truck and if he knew about the stock. All we know is that he managed to take one capsule of the stock and run away.

- This is a serious problem Hillman. Nobody should know about the stock. Out of all people him, taking it is a disaster. We need him down, understood?

- I have started planning how to capture him, just give me more time. His actions have been rather strange these past few days.

- What do you mean by strange?

- His actions don't fit his personality at all. He is rather quick and sneaky, trying his best not to blow away his cover, that is one of the reasons he became such a threat to us no matter what we tried, always had a magic trick in his sleeve. But these past two events he has been doing the opposite of what he normally does. He infiltrated our systems, he showed himself to our two drivers. In all other cases, he has engaged combat only if he was cornered. Something is wrong. He has something in mind.

- Did you check all of the students who were down when the attack on the system happened?

- Yes, and nothing was found. It seems he made it look like he was among the students while hijacking classified files. They are many theories about ShiruEto, even one that he isn't one person, but we have much evidence that this can't be true, so our best bet is that he hacked the system using the robots he spread in the building.

- We understand. Well if you excuse us Hillman, but we have an urgent meeting to attend to. We will get in touch soon. Until then, work hard and if this fiasco with the stock repeats again you will face great sanctions.

The hologram stopped and the room became a silent place once again. What are you planning ShiruEto? Why did you attack our systems and do nothing? What will you do now with the substances? To these questions Hillman tried to find answers but to no avail.

Arthur woke up. His whole body was sore and didn't want to move, but even so, he got up. He looked around. The room was large, but pretty gray and broken literally - he was in an abounded building and there was a hole in the floor from which someone could jump down to the basements. He was lying in a sleeping bag on the floor. Arthur heard footsteps coming from another room. He tried to find his mask but to no avail. A man appeared in a black suit, which covered all of his body, his face too, nothing was visible. On his helmet, he had a darkened glass that covered his eyes, and on his palms, he had black leather gloves. He is a sky-rider, thought Arthur. That is how we managed to escape.

- Are you awake? - asked the man. - How are you feeling?

- Who are you? Do you know who I am? What do you want? - said, Arthur.

- Of course, I know who you are. To your third question, I only want to help you. I mean no harm. As for who I am it doesn't matter. You must be hungry. Eat this. - The man was holding a chocolate bar and a bottle of water, which he gave to Arthur.

Arthur was starving so when he saw the food his jaw dropped down. The hostile feeling he had disappeared too. He quickly opened the snack and started drinking the water as if his life was depending on it.

- You have been asleep for a day and a half. - said the man. - Your body is weakened, so don't put too much pressure on yourself and try to relax. You should drink a lot of liquids too.

*Almost two days? For how long have I been here? What happened to the drivers of the truck? Now I have another problem too, he knows my identity and on top of that I've missed the first two days of school! This is very, very, very bad! What would Liam and the teachers think?! I am so done! I have to get back as soon as possible. At least I have all of my limbs intact. Now, what should I do with this guy? If he wanted me dead he could've killed me a million times by now, why did he help me?*

- I will leave your belongings here. I left a bag full of food for you too. - said the man - We are near the border between the Bazar and Sector 0. I believe you can navigate to home on your own from here. I will be going now.

- Wait, wait! Who are you? Why did you save me? Most people want me dead, but you don't. Is there a reason?

The man stopped for a moment at the door, but no word left his mouth. He left the boy without a single answer to his questions leaving him speechless and more confused than before. Arthur heard the start of an engine of a vehicle, which he recognized. Sky-riders use hoverbikes to travel in the air. This was the sound of one ascending. After a few seconds, nothing could be heard except the wind. When Arthur got up he felt an unbearable pain in the right side of his stomach. He had a severe wound, but the sky-rider had patched it. He had no choice but to bear with the pain. He put on his torn jacket, took his bag, and opened the rusty door. He was on the roof of the building. The weather was cloudy and it was lightly raining, the city's tall buildings were visible as well as the hippodrome of the Bazar, which was full of life as usual. He could also see parts of Sector 0 - a massive abandoned sector filled with crumbling buildings and deathly silence. He was just at the beginning of Sector 0, but still had a lot to walk. Arthur let out a big sigh and slowly started walking toward the city. He walked across buildings, which appeared to be museums, cinemas, and theatres left to rust. He walked and walked, then reached a big stormy river. He climbed one of the buildings, which had a gigantic column laying above the river on another building on the other side. A column - kilometer wide and three kilometers long, compared to her Arthur could be seen as a dot. While he was walking on the column he could hear the river loudly hitting the ruins kilometers below him, and the wind that blew relentlessly. He continued to walk and walk. The boy passed a giant figure of what appeared to be a man, strolled on a giant street full of broken cars and empty shops, where he couldn't walk because of the damage he climbed, made many stops to eat what the man left him with and rest. There was nobody else, only the lonely teenager and the giant abandoned city.

After five hours of walking, he finally reached the Bazar. He was very tired and the pain from his wound was starting to get worse. Hue's bar was about ten minutes far, so he put all of his remaining power into reaching it.

- One beer Hue, as usual.

The bar was full of people and Hue was overloaded with work. Arthur entered the bar and started walking to Hue who was making drinks at the bar. The boy felt he was starting to lose balance and strength. Just as he was going to reach the bar stools he felt his head heavy, his eyes were closing and slowly his consciousness was losing touch with reality, only some voices echoed in his head "Arthur!", "What Happened", "Give him space to breathe", " Help him!".

It was becoming evening. Hue was quietly reading his book on a rocky chair while drinking whiskey. Arthur woke up with a big headache. He tried getting up.

- Hey, easy there. You aren't going anywhere with that wound of yours. - said, Hue. Arthur could easily tell he was stressed out from his little show in the bar.

- I am fine. I have to get back to school or they will suspend me.

- Arthur you have a hole in your stomach. You can't go, at least not right now. Your body needs to recover. Tell me, what happened? Is this again linked with the ShiruEto thing?

- Hey! Don't talk about it so openly! Someone might hear us. Yes, it is linked with the ShiruEto thing. I found a van full of classified capsules full of strange liquid. I was so close to getting one when one of the drivers threw some kind of a grenade. After that, I woke up close to Sector 0 in an abandoned apartment building, a sky-rider saved me. He didn't tell me anything and left, but he saw my face.

- Really? Did you see where he drove off to?

- No.

- Well that's a problem. I told you to not mess with K.A.O.S, they have too much power to be messed with.

- I have to. I just found something that might be the key to actually getting free from this place. I can't stop now. I have to understand what they are up to.

- Did you find the person you were looking for? The one you searched for in the big skyscraper? - asked Hue.

Someone knocked on the door. Hue opened the door. It was one of the waitresses with a bucket full of ice.

- I hope you are alright sweetie! This is for you, please don't push yourself. Call me if you need anything. - said the waitress. She was about thirty-five years old with dark red hair and beautiful green eyes. She liked Arthur very much and sometimes secretly gave him beverages without Hue knowing. - Sorry for interrupting you, boys. Continue your chat and Arthur, be careful! Your body is young but still, protect it. - The waitress then left the room leaving them alone again.

- Arthur. - said, Hue. - Come this week again. I want to show you something. I know you have to go but please be patient. You will recover, just don't do anything stupid.

- I will be careful I promise. - said Arthur smiling a little. Hue smiled back and tousled his hair.

- Oh and one more thing Arthur. I found this in your bag. I think you will be pretty happy.

Hue opened Arthur's backpack and took out a capsule, different than the ones he saw in the van. There was a note on it too.

- I think your new friend left you a gift.

- You've got to be kidding me.

On the note it was written: The old one was broken so I gathered what I could in this new one. Until we see each other again.