Max stood in the alleyway as he thought of his next move. He was excited, years of hard work seemed to be finally paying off. All he had to do was to confirm the information, which wouldn’t be difficult.
“What’s the plan now, Max?”
“Give me a second,” Max shook his head to calm down his raging thoughts about the future, and started focusing on the present.
He considered the situation in front of him. Whatever organization was protecting Eric’s house couldn’t have suspected a black out, much less one this potent or thorough, so they should be in disarray now, paralyzed and incapable of any real action. The radio tower in the east sector should also be broken, preventing any large-scale private communication by both the Military, and the unknown group until it is either repaired or replaced.
Meaning that neither side could get information from the inside. A big advantage for Max, making him was practically a ghost there.
No matter how much these guys prepared themselves, they could never had predicted an Esper’s attack, Max thought to himself.
But Mila’s actions had a huge effect on Bertha. Max was completely sure that the military had almost entirely blockaded the east sector, with thorough checks on anyone even attempting to pass. He couldn’t contact anyone outside the sector either, as the call both could, and would, be traced back to him immediately, giving away his location at best, and his complete identity at worst.
And lastly, the whole of inner Bertha would be on a lockdown. Nobody in, nobody out.
Max only had to fulfill two goals. One was to gear up for an expedition, and the other was to get out of Bertha. As long as he could escape, he would lose all heat, get an alibi, and hopefully confirm his intel.
With all the advantages and disadvantages weighed in Max’s mind, he finally made a decision “Alright, I’ve made my mind. We’re going to Henrick.”
Henrick was one of the people Max spent the early days of the apocalypse with, much like Kain. While the latter had settled down and started his own bar, Henrick was different.
He had become a trader, of sorts, bartering for both skill and commodities in the outer city and the wastelands. The only more notable thing was that Henrick would often smuggle people without documents inside Bertha to work for him, without the eyes of the military upon them. With their consent, of course.
Max knew what Henrick did and had employed his services both for sneaking people into the city and out. The only difference was that this time, Max himself would be the cargo.
Luck was on his’s side because Henrick mostly worked in the east sector, with his base of operations located within.
Prime remained quiet as she continued scanning, so she could give Max the fastest route to Henrick’s base, without being spotted.
Max’s machinations earlier had caused quite a spark for the opportunists that lurked around every corner. He would occasionally hear glass shattering, screams, gunshots, and much more. While he gave his mental condolences to the populace, it was still beneficial, since he could hide his tracks more easily with all the thievery going on. He eventually had to lose the shotgun slung on his back, but Max planned a better use for it.
Max had also gotten completely accustomed by this point to the dark streets of Bertha, effortlessly taking note of most the things happening in the dark, voiding his need for a flashlight unless he wished to reveal where he was.
A few minutes passed by as Max finally reached what seemed to be an abandoned street, in complete contrast to the high-profile row of houses of where Eric resided.
The buildings in this street were broken down and forsaken, all the windows shattered, with cracks and holes marring the walls that still stood. The lack of garbage indicating that even those that normally made a home in abandoned buildings, had abandoned these ones.
Bertha’s main problem of not being able to hold enough people was twofold. The space within the walls was already too limited house everyone, with the management simply not caring enough to take care of old and dilapidated buildings like those on this street, wasting much of what land was already far too little. Making new buildings in the odd places where they fit, selling or renting them to those who could afford it, was more profitable to those running the city.
Either way, places like these were really useful for secret organizations like Henrick’s to prosper. While the Military often knew at least a little about them, their occasional patrols could be rerouted elsewhere for just a moderate sum.
Max casually walked inside one of the building with its roof completely collapsed, leaving behind just a one story tall concrete apartment, with metal rods and rubble scattered around.
Max carefully walked through the rubble to a corner, suprisingly clean compared to the area, if one noticed it and looked closer. There was a carpet hidden beneath the rubble, which Max moved away to reveal a dusty trap door underneath.
Max knocked on the door thrice in quick succession, before pausing and doing it again, alerting the doorkeeper that whoever was knocking knew the establishment they were looking for. Once done, Max waited exactly a minute next to the door, before he heard a voice so quiet one would easily miss it if not paying attention came from underneath.
“Who’s there.”
“Zeta, alone. I’m looking for Henrick. It’s important, and I need to personally discuss with him.”
Once Max said the code word, silence took over once again as he waited with his arms crossed, both of his hands next to the guns in his holsters.
After a few seconds of silence, the trap door slowly opened and a tarnished man, seemingly from the outer city, climbed out. He nodded towards Max, who nodded back, before using the ladder to climb down to the once-cellar that was Henrick’s base. Once he was down, the person greeting him closed the trap door above, turning whole place pitch black. No matter how used to the dark Max’s eyes were, he still needed at least some light to see. This was something else.
He pulled out prime and turned her flashlight, flinching as he blinded himself for a moment with the sudden brightness.
Once his eyes adjusted, he looked around in the dusty cellar to see an artificial hole in the furthermost wall, leading down into the sewers. Max steeled himself for the foul air he could already smell, and walked through.
The noise of water drops echoed in the tunnel, a small pool of greenish refuse trailing down the middle as long as his light could illuminate, reflecting it. He flinched once the horrid smell finally truly hit him. Max was thankful for the raised concrete paths on either side along the lenght of the tunnel. Once used by the workers here, they were still enough that he could easily walk past any unmentionables below him.
Max walked straight ahead in the dark tunnel with only Prime’s light reflecting from the endless strip of liquified human waste as his guide. He would sometimes notice blinking red dots in the darkness, but he knew those were just some security cameras looking in Max’s direction, just a fraction compared to those that did not announce their presence. He could only figure that they used either infrared, or at least some other form of night vision to keep track of him should he turn his light off.
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After a few minutes of walking straight, Max knocked twice on a sealed metal door to his side - 8th since the hole he descended through.
The door slowly opened from the inside, a towering figure standing behind it, his hands crossed. Max could only see a black silhouette of the man, the light within the room behind him still much too bright, despite how long he had to get adjusted with his flashlight. Max couldn’t help but shield his eyes.
“Max, Max, Max.” the silhouette shook his head as he called his name three times almost as if he was disappointed. “There’s only one person in the whole wide world who’d ignore a city-wide alert and come to me for a different objective. At least that’s what I assume.”
“Henrick?” Max said as Prime turned off her light.
“What? Don’t tell me you forgot how your old pal looked like did you?”
“My eyes just aren’t used to the lights, just give me a second.”
“Well, no point staying out there, the sewer water smells horrible so come inside.”
Max quickly blinked, trying to get used to the brightness of the room. The barren concrete walls and the remnants of iron shelves, with the concrete taking a lighter hue where a door once had been on the other side, indicated that this was a bunker connected to one of the houses above before Henrick’s group moved in.
The door to the sewers looked hastily installed with much the same lighter coloration on this side, although one could not tell from within the sewer, both because of meticulous care taken to hide tampering, and the foul air slowly painting everything the same drab tone. The other steel doors, similarly installed on Henrick’s order, led to either nothing or explosives, depending on who knocked.
Other entrances, if any, were hidden behind whatever object were in the room, invisible from where Max was, much like whatever air vents assuredly existed. The sewer itself had breathable air, but it was breathable only by technicality.
The interior lacked any real furnishing, apart from the varied boxes, and the couple guards so everpresent they could be counted as furniture. The latter held small automatic rifles, the former varied greatly from drugs to weapons to just stale air and spiders.
Both Max and Henrick sat down on some larger boxes.
Henrick was bigger than Max, both in height and mass, though the former just barely. He was muscular, to the degree where one might suspect steroid abuse, a conclusion Max wouldn’t question even if he never saw proof. His short black hair fit his stature.
The old wooden box creaked under his weight.
He looked truly iintimidating, but Max knew he was a good fellow at heart.
Henrick clasped his hands on his legs, leaning forward to where max sat, opposite.
“Alright, spit it. What do you want?”
Max raised his eyebrows, “What? No hospitality for your client? No tea or asking about how my day has been?”
“Bah! As if you ever cared about that. I got my hands full since the power outage is a much bigger pain than I assumed at first, all our generators and power storage got fried in the power surge, and our back-up generators can’t handle all the pressure. More than half of this place isn’t working. So unless you got an emergency, you can fuck off right now because I’m pissed.
Max sighed, “Well that just makes things easy, I just need to get something outside of Bertha.”
Henrick’s eyes narrowed as he looked to the guards behind him, “Leave us alone for a bit, It’s business talk.”
The guards disappeared behind some boxes in the corner, stacked taller than the rest, if only just slightly.
Max waited patiently as he leaned his back to the wall again with his arms crossed. The pose was made uncomfortable by the size of the box under him but It was a small habit that he couldn’t get rid of.
“What game are you playing, Max?” Henrick said as he stared at Max like a bull staring at piece of red cloth.
Max ignored his anger as he continued, “It is an emergency, I want you to smuggle me outside Bertha without letting the military or anyone else know about it.”
Henrick stared at Max for a few more moments before he took in a deep breath, “Before I give you any of my services, you have to tell me why you caused the power outage.”
Max kept a poker face on as he replied, “You think I did it? You think I, by myself, took out a quarter of Bertha’s whole power generation? The most protected sector in whole of Bertha?”
“Aha! I got you! I never mentioned anything about a quarter of Bertha losing power!”
Max looked at him with well faked confusion, before continuing in genuine annoyance, “What the hell do you mean you got me? It’s told to us on the city-alert.”
Henrick clenched his teeth as he started thinking about some other trick he could pull Max into, but he was too occupied with thinking about how to deal with the problems he knew Max caused, even if he could out him in the first place.
Instead, Henrick just gave up as Max started talking, “Alright stop beating around the bush, just give it to me straight, why are you trying to throw me under the bus, what sort of problem have you landed in this time?”
Both Max and Henrick knew each other very well. Both peoples’ instincts told them, respectively, that the other was most definitely in a lot of trouble.
Henrick removed his tough and pissed-off disguise as he looked down saddened like he was caught guilty of stealing, “Damn it… remember when I said that the power outage took out our generators and our power storage units? Well, they were expensive, and just replacing them will put us in the red. If that happens there will be no trading when that happens, then I’ll have to let go of all the people under me.”
Max sighed, he already knew from the beginning that Henrick was in trouble, but he didn’t know just how much exactly. “I’m willing to bail you out. I’ll loan you a quarter the amount you lost, so you don’t go in the red, and you can slowly pay it back with no interest.”
Henrick stood up, his face brightening up like a kid who got their favorite candy, “Really!? You’d really do that!?”
Max raised his finger, “Only on one condition, you work for free for my company until you’ve either paid off your debt, or done more work than it. That good enough for you?
“Yep! Absolutely! Thanks Max! You’re a lifesaver!”
Max, Prime, and Henrick worked out the details of the loan and transactions there in the room. Henrick had already used his phone to disable the cameras, so no important information would leak out, should they be compromised.
Once everything was done, Henrick spoke first, “So, now that my issues have been cleared, what did you need help with?”
“Told you before. Smuggle me outside of Bertha without letting anyone know about it, Also I need some things as well.”
“Done. Truth be told, I thought you wanted that shotgun smuggled outside somewhere. That thing screams out a financial opportunity.”
Max hadn’t inspected the shotgun thoroughly after stealing it since it was a huge liability in his hands. It was taken from general Eric’s house, so if he sold it anywhere in Bertha, the military would come knocking at Alphas doors in a matter of days.
Max thought carefully before answering, “Well, something like that.”
Once the deal was done, Max spoke about everything he needed from Henrick. It was general equipment that Max always carried on him whenever he went to the wasteland, along with some extra things for his mission to prove that the information was correct, both to him and his employees. He knew that they trusted him to tell them whatever he believed was true, but also that they would not trust that whatever he believed, was true, without at least some evidence. Especially for something this severe. He commended them for this.
A backpack with some rations, a charged power bank -a thin slide on the side of which could be rotated, serving as a crack to gain some power in emergencies- for Prime, basic medical supplies, and an incendiary grenade for the tree he was going for. Aside from that, Max decided to take some gear as well, since it was almost free anyway.
A Tactical vest, so it was easier for max to carry ammunition. Max wore the vest under his overcoat since the pockets in his overcoat were really useful. Knee and elbow guards so being too mobile would risk less injury, and some special ammo for his weaponry. Specifically some armor-penetration magazines for his pistol, as good as those got, and some dragon’s breath shells for his shotgun in case the grenade failed and he needed backup or to instill fear in Omegas and get some breathing space.
Once Max was completely geared up, he followed Henrick back outside into the sewer tunnel. The steel doors on the side continued for a while. They both walked for a couple minutes until Henrick broke the silence first.
“I always hate this part.”
He took out a plastic glove from his pocket, wore it, and then started searching from something in the foulish, green, viscous liquid.
Max raised his eyebrow and asked, “Do you always have to do this?”
“Usually I leave it to my people, but you’re special.”
“Wow. Seeing you dunk your hand in poo water really does make me feel special.” Max said sarcastically.
Henrick wanted to retort but he was already inches away from what could only be classified as a biohazard, and chose to instead keep his mouth shut so he didn’t breathe in the fumes coming off of it.
He was searching for some cables that were hidden under the water so nobody would find them unless they knew about it. Once he finally found the cables he was looking for, he pulled them and the walls beside Max started moving back like there was a door that was opened.
Max was a bit surprised as he complimented Henrick, “A hidden door, huh? Classic.”
“Yep, it’s really well hidden, and you can’t open it unless you want to dip your hands in this sewer water.”
“They can just blow the entrance up if they know about it.”
“If, they know about it.”
“Touché.”
“Anyway, just go straight ahead and go up the ladders, and you’ll be out of Bertha and no one will see you. Just remember to close the door when you leave.”
“Got it.” Max nodded as he entered the hidden entrance and Henrick closed the wall behind him.