The militia were spread too thin on their patrols, and manning their checkpoints, to form a proper perimeter. Not that they were trained enough to coordinate a proper perimeter to begin with. So walking out of town was easy enough.
They met up with Sal and their getaway driver from this morning, Sarah, just inside Sancam’s district boundary. From there, they met up with Gail and made the trade with Wyatt and his entourage. They didn’t like all the extra prisoners that they sprung. Rachel didn’t care. They agreed to offer up their coyote services for free to the extra prisoners, if only because having them recaptured and talking to the militia wouldn’t be helpful to anyone.
And, Rachel suspects, rendering their services didn’t actually cost them much.
---
"-is his real name, but he likes to go by Touchstone.” major Sanders continues, addressing colonel Dunn through the laptop on the dresser.
“He's ex-military, but barely. He was only in for about a year before being labeled as a dissident, malcontent, and insubordinate shortly after the meteors fell. He was thrown in the brig and held indefinitely without a trial.”
“Was he one of the first, or did he only go after it became popular?” The colonel snides.
“He was one of the first.”
The colonel scribbles something in his small, fine leather pocket binder.
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“Shortly thereafter, the brigs and prisons started filling up, then the government started selling prisoners off to corporations. Shortly after that,” Sanders continues quickly, “the government collapses, and Atla-corp starts its second wave of trials in human experimentation, using prisoners instead of volunteers this time.
The Aether cured Sing’s Myopia, and a benign tumor in his leg. It also permanently hardened his skin into a psuedo-stone. Though this doesn’t limit his mobility. He is a D-class mute. While impressive compared to regular human abilities, his powers are relatively minor alongside other mutes. He has no control over his abilities, and they are nonadaptive. He can shrug off most hand to hand weapons and absorb minor impacts. Heavier melee weapons and most small arms fire, while it won’t penetrate, the shock will still break bones and cause internal damage. Operating on such injuries requires special equipment that only corporations have access to.”
The colonel continues jotting down notes as he talks.
“He escaped during the coup last winter, preventing further research and improvements to his particular mutation for the next round of Evos. He's been in hiding ever since. Little is known about him outside his pseudonym, Golem. Intel gathered from bounty hunters suggests he is always on the move, probably working as a smuggler or a thief. It is unclear if he is part of any organization, though it is unlikely that he could remain this aloof without assistance.”
Colonel Dunn sighs, setting down his pen, and stares straight at the major.
“So, how do you intend to find him?”
“I have a few ideas…”
---
Rachel was silent on the way back to the hostel. The sound of the woman’s scream still humming in her ears. Her head swam with nightmarish images that held the perfect clarity of intense memory. The woman’s face pressed into the ground, being manhandled for no other reason than having a passing resemblance to herself. The sadistic calm in the large militiaman’s eyes as he held a hate filled crowd at gunpoint and crushed an innocent woman’s chest into the ground. The reptilian stare of the brown-eyed militiaman as he hands her the application and waits for permission to lock her up forever...