As they approach the camp the system lets off an alarm inside letting them know they’re close. Razzo shoots up and presses a couple buttons trying to figure out how to turn off the alarm. TD wakes up and sees him struggling, goes into his pocket and pulls out the same metal chip as before and rubs it with his fingers turning off the alarm.
TD casually gets up from lying down and says: “You wouldn’t have been able to turn off the alarm, I’ve imprinted on the vehicle so it only listens to me”.
“I thought that was illegal before?” - asks Razzo confusedly.
TD smirks: “Well before all this happened let's just say I was good with technology…”
TD looks over at Dre: “What’s with the robot it doesn’t wake up to alarms?”
“I’m not sure, I don’t exactly know how Automatons work, last time I woke Dre up was by touching its severed shoulder and picking at the wiring. Lets just say Dre wasn’t too happy about it …” - shrugs Razzo.
“Come on man, even I know that’s not cool to do, why would you do that?”
“I didn’t know what to do and I was curious, hadn’t seen the inside of an Automaton before”.
TD shakes his head: “Whatever, we’ll let the Automaton rest till we get to the base”.
They turn their attention to the horizon as the sun rises from the darkness and watch it slowly lighten the sky. There’s a small decline in the ground below making a small valley in this part of the city. With many houses built on slants and not many high buildings the vehicle stops and hovers above one the slanted sides. TD signals to lower the altitude and as they descend on the slant, the slanted ground opens up revealing a hangar full of various military and civilian vehicles that had been modified. They go down and land in the hangar with the hangar doors quickly closing behind them as if the ground never changed.
“Get up loser we’re here” - Razzo jokingly nudges Dre.
Dre sighs: “And I was just having the most splendid realignment…”
TD puts his hand on the side of the vehicle and the nanobot wall retracts and TD along with Dre and Razzo step out of the vehicle. As soon as they step out they are met with a squadron of guards fully armored with energy speers pointing at them.
TD says quickly: “Woah woah woah lets relax and put those things down before someone gets hurt”.
TD grabs the metal chip out of his pocket, rubs it and the back of the vehicle opens up. At the same time he goes and slaps his palm on the middle section of the vehicle opening up the section. TD looks at the weightless backpacks and satchel in the vehicle and then back at the guards.
TD then extends his arms and says with a big smile: “Now aren’t you guys happy to see me?”
One of the guards steps up from the semi circle encircling TD, Dre, and Razzo, and almost goes in to embrace TD with a hug but instead as he gets close grabs his arm, spins him around and pushes him up against the vehicle and puts him in energy cuffs. Razzo tries to stop the guard but the rest of the guards put their spears up to him. The guard then rips the mask off TD revealing the scouts face. The scout had small eyes, high cheekbones and a sharp jawline to go along with long curly brown hair that went down to his shoulders.
“Just let it happen man we’ll figure it out inside”.
He winks at Razzo as the guard takes him away past the hanger. Two guards go over to the magnetic board that Desai is resting on and take him away with TD.
One of the other guards steps up and says: “We will not take you in secure holdings for you were guests and didn’t break any of the codes that we let those working with us know. But I do advise for your sake to come with us willingly…”
Razzo and Dre exchange a quick glance and go with the guards after Desai.
“In movies this is usually where they either give us an award or take us somewhere far away to kill us” - awkwardly jokes Razzo.
Dre looks at him in horror: “Why would you say that, are you trying to freak me out because I am already doing a great job of that on my own?!?!”
“Relax, I was just joking around!” - smiles Razzo as he picks up his speed.
Two more guards grab magnetic wagons and place the backpacks and satchel in them and take them all in. As they leave the mechanics in the hangar go to address the vehicle and inspect it for any repairs. Razzo makes one last glance at the volare 694 that saved their lives before looking ahead. As they pass through a series of underground tunnels, they notice a lot more people using them back and forth as a highway for pedestrians going about their business. There are people making coffee along the pathway, as well as making energy bracelets, repairing broken trinkets, bartering different items and even one person playing an instrument. The pathway opens up to a pretty big underground market with similar entrances on each side.
Razzo asks the guards: “Where are all these people coming from?”
The guard replies: “We are not an isolated community, there's a larger community that uses this market to help one another out with resources and tools”.
Dre then whispers to Razzo: “Does that mean what we did was pointless?”
“I hope not, not worth it to give up your life if you can just get resources here”. - he replies a little defeated.
The guards take them down the middle of the market where various vendors have small booths and either trade with for other resources or provide things for free with each having a booth coloured in a different color. Some booths are red, some are blue, and some are yellow, then Razzo looks at the exits and notices that the doorways are also painted in blue, yellow, and red. He then looks back and sees that the tunnel they came out of has the doorway painted white.
“Why is the hangar painted white?”
The guard answers: “We all use it so it remains a neutral site, just like the market that we are walking through, with various collaboration pop-up houses here and there to get our camps working together on various solutions. What also occurs is that each camp brings their excess resources here and people barter and trade with people from other camps”.
Razzo nods his head: “Okay I see but what camp did we come from?”
“You came from the smallest camp up here in the middle, the yellow camp. Now although this camp is the smallest it is probably the most critical to our success as your camp holds a lot of people that are masters of crafting energy bracelets that we all use”.
They walk past the market and walk up to the entrance of the yellow tunnel. They go through it with more of the same booths and people talking back and forth and the atmosphere feels lively like it used to be above ground. It’s as if it simply moved below almost like the last six months never happened, almost. They all make it through to the end of the tunnel by which point they are met with more familiar guards. One of them was one of the guards that guarded the cage, and the other was the arrogant guard that had given Dre a hard time when the robot went to go see the leaders. The one that was guarding the cage immediately goes to check the injured Desai.
He asks: “How you feeling man?”
Desai replies: “I’ve had better days, but I’ll tell you all about this one soon enough”.
The guard steps in front of the two guards monitoring his board and says: “I’ll take him from here and get him straight to the medics”
The two guards nod their heads and let Desai get taken away.
The arrogant guard tells the guard at the front walking TD: “I’ll take this traitor to the cage”.
TD laughs: “You’ll regret saying that when you find out what I did”.
The guard takes him by the energy restraints and takes him to the cage where Dre used to sit.
The rest of the entourage continues to move Dre and Razzo and sits them down by the entrance of the leaders tent. One of the guards goes into the tent and alerts the leaders that they have caught the hooligans that snuck out of camp. The six leaders come rushing out to see with their own eyes.
Kaner starts: “You idiots could have gotten yourselves captured or killed, as well as risking the limited human resources we have at our disposal to go on your little side quest. WHY?”
“Well looks like you don’t need us anymore so we’re just going to skidaddle out of here now”. - says one of the guards as they all try to make themselves as small a target as possible and slip away from the leaders.
Kaner waves them off without saying another word to the guards while maintaining eye contact with Razzo.
Razzo speaks quietly: “You asked us if we would help, so we went out and helped…”
“Help doesn’t mean putting everyone else at risk if you were caught or somehow managed to expose our camp. We don't even know if we can fully trust you yet and you pull this maneuver off, what are you insane!!” - a fuming Em explodes.
“But we got the resources and supplies that the camp needed!”
Kronos says with an analytical perspective: “Yes you helped us in the short term but may have seriously hobbled us in the long term. We're down one more warrior for an extended period of time, one of our best scouts is going to be punished for a while, now we have to be more careful when we scout that area because it’ll be crawling with the enemy… Oh and one more thing now we have to go and execute our plan now to free the colosseum before the entire fleet gets here”.
“Now that we’re down Desai, one of our best soldiers we’re going to need someone to take his place and even tho we can’t exactly trust you we’re left with no choice as you’re the only option we got Razzo!” - Anker chimes in.
Razzo and Dre exchange confused glances.
Dre says: “So are we in trouble or not?”
Em and Kaner yell simultaneously: “YES!!!”
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“Yes you’re in trouble but we are also short on people to run the mission to jailbreak the colosseum so we will need your help” - says Izabela attempting to defuse the situation.
“So where do we begin?” - says Razzo with a smile.
The leaders all get frustrated with the response and Kaner tells himself under his breath ‘breathe you’re doing fine they’re just morons, you’ll be okay, just breathe, you’ve been here before’. He takes a few more deep breaths to collect his thoughts.
“Okay I’m glad you want to correct your wrongdoings but this eagerness is exactly what got us in this situation initially so please just relax and do exactly what we’re going to tell you to do” - he sternly tells the two idiots.
The leaders begin to enter back into the tent, everyone goes in until it’s Razzo, Dre, and Izabela are left standing outside alone. Razzo awkwardly gestures to Izabela to go first and she does the same gesture to him. Dre observes it as some weird species mating ritual and just stands back trying to figure out what the heck is going on. This continues for a few more moments of awkward hand gestures without anyone actually saying anything. Finally after some scurrying heard from the inside of the tent someone comes to the entrance.
Anker peeps his head out and says: “Come on now, we don’t got all day. You can dilly dally with one anotha later.”
Both Razzo and Izabela blush at the same time. Dre finally fed up with the nonsense knowing there are more important matters at hand than whatever this is stomps his foot.
The robot exclaims waving its one arm: “Fiiiiiiine I guess I’ll go first, no thank you for taking your sweet time. And that goes for both of you!”
Dre goes in next leaving Razzo and Izabela outside the tent. Razzo takes a step forward and as he’s about to step into the tent Izabela grabs him by the elbow. He turns around and faces her as they stand within an arm's reach from each other looking at each other in the eyes.
Izabela slowly gets out the words that she’s been mulling over for a bit: “Nobody wanted to say it but thank you for grabbing those resources we really were running low and I’m not sure if the other camps have much resources left, this should give everyone at least a couple months of supply if rationed properly”.
“Um yeah sure no problemo aha” he shoots an awkward finger gun at her before continuing “I just wanted to help, didn’t mean to make it more difficult for everyone” - says Razzo as his tone changes from awkward to apologetic.
“I know don’t worry, now come on let's go” - says Izabela smiling to him and gesturing to him to go forward.
Razzo walks through the tent and as Izabela enters behind him she toys with him: “Ha you went in first”.
She smiles at him as she goes to sit back in her seat at the table. Razzo sits in one of the chairs he had previously been sitting at the last meeting. In front of him is a projection of the colosseum with various entry points and where they need to go to free the prisoners underneath. The plan appears to be in the very early stages of its development; it was clear that this was not ironed out as the escape mechanisms were not thought out very well. The diagram was layered as data was coming in from multiple sources as well. There were the original archived blueprints of the grandiose structure, then there were the underground layers that ran beneath the colosseum that Dre was providing. Then there were different external aspects that could have been added from scouting reports. All together the picture was messy and incoherent and painting the missing aspects together would’ve been a fool's errand unbeknownst to the damages that were sustained during the invasion. The plans were much to be desired but at this stage they had to make do with what was given to them (so basically perfect for a suicide mission).
Kaner begins: “Originally we were going to wait until nightfall a fortnight from now to discuss the plans as we would have more data. And in the coming weeks to execute this mission and make it as stealthily as possible. Now due the two brave idiots amongst our midst we are forced to go today during the day before the Minerau reallocate more soldiers here”.
“Initially we were going to take a low approach and attack through the streets and enter one of the subterrain entrances. Now we are going to have to come from above, take out a big chunk of land in the middle of the colosseum and have multiple escape routes for people”. - continues the explanation Kronos.
“So where do we come in then?” - asks Razzo
Jefe speaks up: “Simple, Razzor you don’t go stealing petty ressources from occupied territories and leave that part to the professionals”.
Dre murmurs: “Is that all?”
“Had to get that one in there no hard feelings right guys? Anyway, what you will be tasked with is once we land in the center you will be part of the security personnel fighting off Minerau guards and soldiers. You know because of all your so called experience in the field” snickers Jefe sarcastically.
Razzo stands up and exclaims: “Are you done?!? How long are you going to keep berating us?!?”
“Chill out man, we’re all friends here. BUT meanwhile you’re doing hero stuff Dre will be at the front analyzing where exactly below the main floor everyone is gathered and kept and how best to reach them”. - slyly, Jefe says.
Izabela touches Razzo’s hand and he sits down still upset by the cheap shots Jefe was taking at him.
Kaner says: “Now that we got that unnecessary bravado out of the way, is everyone on the same page? Everyone understands what their role is?”
Everyone nods their heads with a bit of uncertainty.
Kaner then says: “Good you’re dismissed, go back to the hangar and prepare for take off while we finalize the details with the other camps”.
They all head out of the tent, Kaner goes up to two guards and gives them one chip each and sends them off. The rest of the leaders go to their respective parts of the camp to gather their people and let them know what’s about to commence so that they will be ready. Dre and Razzo are the only ones left outside the tent with the only course of action to go back to the hangar. They wander about the camp a bit and see the cage in which TD is being kept in, the cage is far too small for him but at least he can stretch his legs out and relax and lean back against the cage. They stop by his cage looking inside as if they’re excited to see their favorite zoo animal Harambe.
“So how you holding up?” - Razzo asks the man behind bars.
TD laughs a bit: “How am I holding up? Well I can’t stand up, I’m sitting on the ground and my ass is freezing so I would go with not great. But I’ve had better days and worse days but I’m alive and uninjured so that’s a bonus I guess. For you guys though I would recommend going and helping and not holding people up, them leaders can be an unforgiving bunch. I’ll be out of here in no time”.
“We’ve already tried the helping out approach and it didn’t really go our way, but I guess it went better for us than for you…” - Dre thinks aloud.
Dre asks: “Anyways, why are you so confident that you’ll get out?”
“Because they can’t live without me, I’m their best scout, I’ve been in this cage more times than anyone else in this camp and always get out. Plus once Desai is back and walking one way or another I’ll be out of this cage” - chuckles TD.
“One more thing before you guys go would you mind grabbing me a cushion? Desai usually grabs me one but as you can see that’s not really an option right now.” - the scout asks kindly.
Razzo nods his head and looks around briefly before spotting an old dirty raggedy cushion lying on the ground. He picks it up and brings it over to the cage and slides it in.
TD teases him: “What you couldn’t have dusted it off a bit I’m like royalty around here!”
Razzo and Dre both wave him off as they stand around for a brief moment. They begin to notice the attention that they’re drawing from the civilians gearing up and Razzo becomes a little uneasy.
He nudges Dre: “Come on we should go”.
Dre goes with Razzo as they travel across the yellow camp back to the house that contains the tunnel entrance. They walk through the building and into the dark tunnel that is only illuminated by dim yellow lights from lightbulbs that seem to have never been changed but also somehow seemed to be this color right from the start. There are people rushing around them, some carrying supplies, some carrying gear, some carrying machinery and tools, with the majority of people rushing towards the market and past it towards the hangar. As Dre and Razzo casually make their way through the market they notice that there’s a lot more nervous chatter between the people now. It’s as if news had spread like wildfire that a large-scale operation was happening and people were preparing from the other two camps pooling into the hangar. It made sense that people would know but the news was only announced to the two heroic idiots about twenty minutes ago, so it caught them a little off guard that so many people knew. As Razzo and Dre enter the hangar they focus in on the back of the hangar that they failed to pay attention to when they were swiftly taken away by the guards. At the back of the hangar were five massive vehicles that Razzo had never seen before. Each appeared to be a collection of air buses and military aviation vehicles that had been welded and fused together into grotesque ships that could hold thousands of people. They were shaped almost like jelly fish with a dome front to absorb damage and a robust rectangular core with exhausts all over the core. They were also equipped with two caterpillar tracks on either side that could fold from side to bottom allowing for the aerial vehicles to also be good for all terrains while also shielding it somewhat in the air. The vehicles looked ugly but were made practical as most things are during hard times.
Dre whispers to Razzo: “We’re going in one of those?”
“Looks like it, everyone's gathering around them” - says Razzo uncertainly.
They walk up to the big crowd, as they get behind everyone Razzo jumps up a little bit over everyone’s heads and looks ahead to see them separating people into two groups. The crowd quickly gets divided and next is Razzo’s and Dre’s turn.
“Protection or extraction?” - asks a man at the end of the line.
Razzo hesitates for a moment and says: “Protection”.
Dre thinks about it and also says: “Protection”.
They walk into a big group of people being clumped together all of which were getting ready getting their armor on.
“Are you sure we’re part of the protection squadron? I thought we were supposed to be extraction?” says Dre.
Razzo shakes his head: “No, I was part of protection and you were part of extraction. Or maybe I got it backwards? Why didn’t you record the meeting that would of been so useful, you know you can’t trust my memory!”
“HOW WOULD I KNOW THAT?!?” exclaims Dre.
Razzo shushes him: “Settle down, don’t cause a scene now.”
“Okay okay, but I don’t record everything plus what if they captured me?” - says Dre.
“Fair point, fair point okay just stay close to me” - replies Razzo.
They are sent into one of the categories with people mounting various posts outside the massive machines. Then they hear a familiar voice say to the guard: “They’re with me”
Razzo and Dre look back and it’s Izabela talking to a guard and pointing at them with the guard waving them over and putting them in the extraction group.
Razzo and Dre walk over to Izabela, Dre asks: “Why did you switch us?”
“Because you don’t have an energy bracelet and Razzo isn’t exactly great with his either from what I heard from TD…”
“Plus if you remember the plan correctly the whole point was that you guys would help get people out right?”
Razzo and Dre nod their heads: “Yeah totally get what you mean we just go sidetracked sort of”.
Izabela doesn’t respond and walks to the line where people are getting into the back of vehicles, with Dre and Razzo lagging behind her.
Razzo whispers to Dre: “I actually destroyed the Minerau so I don’t know what she’s talking about”.
Dre giggles: “Yeah after he already kicked your ass and missed”.
Razzo rolls his eyes: “Still counts…”
They continue to enter the ships and as Razzo and Dre enter the ship they are taken back in awe of the technological feat. There is a massive chamber in the middle that could hold thousands of people. The chamber has 10 levels to it which go into larger rooms to the side with rails all around each floor. Just before the rails there are energy tunnels that act as quick exits that shoot out of the aerial machines. There are also floors in the middle of each floor that separate the chamber but can be seen through the floor because they are energy floors which are partially transparent. Razzo and Dre follow Izabela to one of the energy tunnels and one by one the tunnel shoots them up onto the eighth floor where they walk into a room with other people. There was additional gear as well as energy bracelets for those that didn’t have any. People were grabbing gear getting ready and as they put their gear on they moved to the edge of the room. Razzo already had his gear although without a helmet because he didn’t need it for the air quality as it wouldn’t affect him. Izabela goes and hands him a helmet disregarding that he doesn’t wear one.
Razzo smiles: “I don’t need it remember I’m immune”
“No silly, it's to listen to the instructions of the mission”.
Razzo nods his head awkwardly: “Oh okay I guess that’s a valid point but feels like quite unnecessary for me, and what about Dre he won’t know either”.
Izabela rolls her eyes and says: “Fine! Have it your way, just follow me and don’t get lost”.
Everyone finishes grabbing all the gear and the room fills up, after a couple moments everyone stops fidgeting and goes silent. At this point the instructions are being given about the mission and what exactly each ship will do and go, as well as the role of each level on every ship.
Razzo whispers to Dre: “I feel like they could have done better”.
Dre nods its head and says: “I for once agree with you and think you’re right this could have been done better”.