The Revelers (Serial 1)

Act 2 - Chapter 30: Ari

I wake up feeling groggy and wasted. I had a dream where I was a kid and I was playing with a little girl named Mathilde. We were having fun at a jungle gym. I think I was five years old. Then Gunhild showed up, and the world went to shit.

My vision is still blurry but slowly clears, making out my current enclosure. I seem to be in a small captivity cell with a bunk bed on one side and a sink and toilet at the corner. A single white light illuminates the room, enclosed in white walls. The sound of someone mumbling a prayer in a foreign language comes from the upper bunk. My eye's Librascope app identifies the prayer as a Hindu mantra.

"Hello?" I say, wondering who's above me.

"Oh! You're awake." The male voice sounds weak but familiar. I recognize the accent.

"Milani?" I answer while getting off the bed. I look up to see who's on the top bunk. I'm right.

The boy is Milani, and he looks trashed. He smells like he hasn't taken a shower in a week, airing out a strong noxious body odor. His white shirt has stains of sweat and blood, and his pants look torn. He has no shoes on his bare feet.

"What the hell happened to you?" I ask.

"Octavia's goons took me from my work at the Aether Dome and interrogated me."

"What for? What are they after?"

"They wanted access to some top secret documents. Stuff about certain persons named Mathilde and—" Milani pauses, trying to catch a breath.

"Come on, Milani. And what else do they want, man?" I urge.

"—and Arizona." Milani takes another deep breath. "Ruby Solstice and you. Apparently, you two share a relation. I'm sorry, Ari. I didn't mean—"

"You don't need to apologize." I interrupt. "It's not your fault. Right now, we need to figure out how to get out of here."

"How are we going to do that? We are over 10,000 meters above the sea, on a giant airship."

I raise a brow. "A giant airship?"

"Yes," Milani says. "We're on the Solstice Sky Labs, the headquarters of The Eyes of War. Even if we bust out of this dank place, you'll have to hijack an air-taxi and fly very far away and quick."

I guess that's one way to end up in The Sky Labs — as a prisoner. "Anyway, do you know how to fly an air-taxi?"

"No," Milani answers.

"Me neither, but I'm sure we can figure something out when we get to that point. For now, we need a plan. Perhaps you might know something about this place."

Milani spills the details on the guards' routines and what to expect. Doesn't seem like much, but I'm certain a surprise attack is possible once a guard enters the cell. However, the security outside the cell could pose a challenge.

Peeking out the slit on the cell door, I spot another door secured by a numeric passcode. Above the door is a security camera. In the opposite direction, I see two guards in red hoods escorting Livia, her wrists and ankles bound by an energy rope, towards the door. One guard punches the code—which Librascope records—and the door slides open, granting them access. I wonder where they're taking Livia.

From the other side, a loud pounding noise reverberates. A nearby hooded guard with a ventilator mask over their face yells, "Settle down, rabbit! Your time will come."

"Suck it, strawberry-head!" A familiar voice yells as a pale hand pokes out from the small opening, delivering the universal middle-finger salute.

My strongest assumption is Samza is right there, and Livia is being escorted somewhere. How about Mezos and Charles? How about my gear? That wrinkly cog in my head called a brain spins, coming up with a game plan.

A minute later, footsteps sound from the hallway. I spot two hooded guards, one of them wielding a cat-o'-nine-tails whip. The other one with a shock stick. The whipper is also not wearing a mask, while the unarmed one has a clear plexi-shield mask on their face.

"Ari," Milani says, "that sounds like them. I can hear the whip."

"Stay calm," I instruct while finding something I can use as a weapon, since Milani looks too scrawny and weak to fight. Scanning the room, the only suitable thing I can use is a pillow, but if that sink works, then I can soak the pillow, increasing its mass, turning it into a blunt force weapon. If not, then I can use it as a suffocation weapon. I snatch the pillow from the lower bunk, turn on the sink, and soak the pillow. Sweet. The sink works.

"What are you doing?" Milani asks.

"I'm improvising." Once the pillow is plump and soaked like an oversized sponge, I get into stance and prepare to strike. "Also, have you taken a shower yet?" I ask rhetorically.

"I haven't taken one since I got on this airship."

"Good, because I can use your body odor as a weapon."

The door opens and the two guards enter.

I rush at the masked one and deliver an overpowering smack with the soaked pillow, knocking them out. Then I follow up with a swift kick to the unmasked guard's groin.

The whipping lacky screams in pain with their hands on their crotch.

I motion to Milani, "Air them pits!"

Milani takes off his shirt and raises his hand, exposing his armpits. He then smears his smelly pits on to the face of the unmasked guard. A short moment later, the guard passes out. Milani then picks up the shock stick and stuns the pillow-soaked guard for good measure.

I snatch the cat-o'-nine-tails and a security keycard, and bust out of the cell with Milani behind me. Once outside, I crack the whip at the security camera, knocking it off from its mount. Then I use the keycard to unlock Samza's cell.

"Ari!" Samza gasps. "Holy celestial shit, dude."

"Oh, my goodness." Milani rears his head back. "You're that Samza girl."

"Hey! You remember the name." Samza smirks.

"I have one-hundred percent reason to," Milani says.

Samza laughs back. "You look like a guy who knows percentages. That's dope!"

"Where's your brother and yo' brotha?" I ask, not thinking hard about what I said.

"I do not know. He was here, but then those punks took him to some place. Anyway, we should find out where those goons stashed our weapons. Based on the maps and diagrams Livia shared to me before the mission, the armory isn't far."

"Let's press on then."

With the memorized keycode, I unlock the main cell door and we press onward in search of Mezos, Charles, and our gear. A second later, the siren goes off. Looks like guards will swarm the halls, looking to take us out. I guess that means we have to fight through them.