The Foundation

I spent the rest of the day stationed at a spare desk at the Administration Wing arranging for the delivery of the materials and clothes for the concert on the date Trietel had indicated. After talking things over the phone with all the suppliers and hearing their complaints about short notice, I passed the file back to Alley's secretary for her to deal with the final details.

Alley's secretary gave me a frosty glare upon receiving the file and made vague threatening noises about "someone's" lack of professionalism. I just responded with a lazy wave goodbye as I left the office. Its not as of this bit of playacting is my real job anyway. Do I even have a real job in this world in the first place? I suppose working for the world's true god makes me a civil servant right? Explains why the pay sucks so bad.

By the time I walk back to my apartment, the setting sun has painted the campus an orange hue and I need to shield my eyes from the glare while opening the door. I wonder what the Hero is up to now? What does a hero do in his spare time anyway? A stray thought enters my head. Maybe I should head over to the dorms to do a bit of spying on the Hero. Makes sure that everything is in order there. After all, the world's future, and most importantly my future, are riding on the Hero's shoulders.

I shake my head. Forget it. If anything had happened, The Voice would have alerted me. The Hero was probably watching TV or jacking off to hentai or something else equally mundane and random. I had better things to do than watch the Hero zone out in front of a screen.

Entering my apartment (how strange to already start considering a temporary arrangement "mine"), I toss my wallet and key card onto the table and begin to take off my office wear. The Voice overlooked or simply could not be bothered to spawn home clothes for me, so my time in the apartment was spent lounging about in an unbuttoned shirt and underpants. I grab one of the sandwiches The Voice had spawned for me in the kitchen and begin chowing down on my unappetizing early dinner.

"Good. You are back." the familiar rasp rings out from the earpiece, "I require your assistance with a particular task."

"Nice to hear from you too." I respond while making myself comfortable in front of the laptop, "No, welcome back dear, how was your day today? You really know how to make a man feel wanted."

"I already know how your day went. I see no reason why we should waste each other's time with meaningless pleasantries." The Voice deadpans as the laptop boots up.

I smirk to myself saying, "Its the thought that counts man."

The Voice rumbles, "I am not a man. I am not even human. As for my thoughts on how your day went, I see merit in your investigation of the concert. I shall raise my own vigilance regarding this matter."

Oh? What made The Voice suddenly interested in the concert as well?

The Voice continues, "You may not realize this, but Fate has begun to focus its power. I suspect that Fate will be making a move against us soon. As to how Fate intends to make its move, I have no idea, but the concert seems to be as likely a vehicle as any."

So. These peaceful days are about to come to an end. "Am I being called into action for this reason?" I ask The Voice.

"No. The reason why I need your help is because my own investigation has hit a wall. Are you ready to begin the briefing?" The Voice asks.

Sure. Let's do this.

....

The laptop plays a video of a warehouse ablaze in flames. Its that warehouse I bombed right at the beginning.

"As I had told you earlier," The Voice begins, "I would be spending the time looking into the connection between the warehouse you destroyed and the Judecca Militia."

The video freezes and several mugshots and interrogation reports are brought up on the screen. The Voice continues, "I have perused the police records with regard to what they refer to as the "warehouse incident". The statements recorded by the police all point to one thing, the remnants of the Judecca Militia managing to escape capture with the item they had been guarding at the warehouse."

The map of The City appears on the screen and it pans towards the airport hangar base used by the militia.

"With that lead in mind, I began sifting through all the surveillance footage available of the militia's hideout at the airport. It was the most natural place to begin my search for whatever the militia was trying to hide and protect."

I interrupt, "We have seen the surveillance footage of their airport base before. I didn't notice any mysterious mcguffins being stored there."

"Correct." The Voice confirms, "My second look at the surveillance footage yielded the exact same result. I came to the conclusion that I was too late. The militia had already moved the mystery item to a less obvious and more secure location."

The laptop now shows hundreds of recordings from speed trap cameras, police CCTVs and cameras installed on private vehicles.

The Voice rasps while it explains, "Just because the item was no longer at the base did not mean I had no means of tracing it. I already knew the make and registration number of the SUV the militia was using. By combing through the available traffic footage recorded from the date the warehouse was bombed to the day you attacked the militia at the highway, I was able to piece together when and where the militia was whenever they left their base."

Wow. No wonder The Voice wanted to be left alone. It was probably going through hours upon hours of video just to work this detail out.

"Most of the locations the militia visited were fairly innocuous. Trips to buy food and the like. There is very little chance that the mystery item was off loaded during such a trip. Neither have I captured any evidence that would point in such a direction." The Voice states, "However, one trip they made in particular stands out."

The map pans back to the Red Perch Cape District and switches to a real time satellite overlay. The camera then zooms towards a tiny, unobtrusive spot in the district. As the picture blows up and the resolution sharpens to allow me to make sense of it, I notice that The Voice is referring to a stand alone garage located between two rows of shops.

"You think that garage was the drop off point for the mcguffin?" I ask, "If that is the case, would we still be in time to grab it?"

The Voice rasps, "That is not a garage. It is an inclinator."

A what?

The Voice explains, "A substantial part of The City is not the buildings you see around you. Many of the facilities that keep The City functioning such as electrical generation and waste water treatment are located below sea level, in what is referred to as the sarcophagus."

A wire frame schematic of The City is drawn on the screen of the laptop. I raise my eyes in surprise. The City is built on top of a massive block of metal extending to the sea bed. That must be the sarcophagus The Voice is referring to. Several locations top side are highlighted in red as The Voice continues.

"Inclinators are garage sized elevators that provide access to and from the sarcophagus. As The City was built when the memories of nuclear war were still fresh, the sarcophagus was meant to not only be the foundation of The City, but also as a final sanctuary. Its exterior is rated to be able to withstand multiple nuclear strikes and as the electrical generation and water treatment stations are located within it, the sarcophagus can sustain life, as long as its inhabitants are willing to put up with a great deal of discomfort."

The schematic zooms towards one of the inclinators, drawing in its mechanisms.

"The size of the inclinators allows vehicles to bring in refugees and supplies easily. To prevent any invader from easily accessing the sarcophagus from the outside, all inclinators are kept in a locked down state. When sealed, it would require heavy weaponry to breach the shutter of an inclinator. If the unit's sensors detect that it has been compromised, a nuclear strike rated blast door will shut the elevator shaft, preventing any access through that point."

"Then how would the people running the power plant and water treatment thingies actually get to their workplace?" I query.

"Good question." The Voice responds, "Access to the inclinators is a vital matter of security. All maintenance crews must possess an appropriate key card as well as a one time use code that must be fed into the inclinator before it will open. The code is time locked, meaning that it can only be used at a particular time, failing which it will be completely useless. Maintenance crews therefore work on very tightly controlled schedules. They must enter and leave the sarcophagus at pre-determined times."

"And I suppose the militia were not on any approved lists for this one time code?" I ask.

"Correct. I have scoured City records for the appropriate code the militia used, but cannot find it anywhere. Yet it cannot be denied that the militia did manage to enter the sarcophagus." The Voice confirms, "As access is so restricted, the sarcophagus makes an excellent hiding place for whatever the militia are trying to protect."

"So I will be going down there then? Why is there always a sewer mission? No one wants them, no one likes them, but they keep popping up." I grumble.

The Voice laughs, "Yes. I will provide you with access to an inclinator. However you do not need to worry about wading through the muck. What I need you to do is to deploy several drones that will sweep the area for me and bring back any actionable clues for our consideration. Take the rest of the day off. We will set out tomorrow morning."

Well, that's certainly an improvement over what I was expecting. There is one more thing I one to clarify though, "Why are you so concerned about the mysterious mcguffin? You have put a lot of effort into this investigation."

The Voice pauses for a moment before saying, "That mystery item. I do not know what it is, but if the militia at the warehouse was willing to lay down their lives to protect it, then it can only be one thing."

"The item that you were meant to destroy. The doom of this world."