The Penumbra Paradox - ONC 2023

Chapter -11, The thumb.

"The thumb faltered?" The tall woman on the other side of the elevator asked. Arya noticed, she wore a badge that read 'Mrs. Roz. Pharmacy assistant.'

"Yeah. Are you gonna get us arrested?" Benji asked, warily looking at the women and then pursed his lips flat and nodded. "Of course, you've already registered the complaint. Look, we just needed these..."

"I almost had a heart attack, the thumb has never malfunctioned that way. Luckily, Nell here has disabled most of our security systems for this job, right now."

The short guy who had handed over the key card and the thumb waved from behind her, still that smug plastered over his face.

"Where's my thumb?" Mrs. Roz queried, peeking over at Arya's hand.

"Wait, it's yours?" Arya frowned, handing it back over to Mrs. Roz.

"Of course it is mine." She looked back at the short guy, Nell, and looked at Arya. "What did he tell, it's his?"

Benji witnessed that smug slowly drain from that guy's face. Mrs Roz shook her head in dismay and strutted her heels to walk away from them, before exiting the alleyway, she turned around and said, "what happened here will remain here. If you're done, get out of the facility before my guards even have a whiff of anything suspicious. Make sure to transfer the remaining RemCoins to Nell."

"Sure." Benji agreed, tapping something on his tab and within a fraction of a second there were notifications on the short guy's tab.

"Now I'm bankrupt for eternity." Benji groaned, with a saggy face as he left the facility.

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"We are from scientific bureau, class -2 officials, here for the reinforcement announced." Arya said to the officer handling the departure of teams from the main entrance of underground District -7. He stood with his tab, right in front of the elevator doors.

"You're late. We are boarding class-3 workers now. Sorry. The call will be given to you if the reinforcement isn't enough." The officer replied carelessly.

"You don't understand. We are with Silas and we received official notices from the bureau on our mails." Arya went over and flashed her tab on the military officer's face.

Fiana kept her head low, as inconspicuous as possible, as Arya had instructed her. Fiana understood the assignment rather clearly this time.

"I'll have to confirm with my boss." The officer said and went ahead to negotiate something on the comms  he wore in his ears.

Arya folded her arms and groaned. The notices they had received were true, but they had deliberately missed their cruiser so they could pull off the theft at the pharmaceutical facility.

"I said right, I can't believe we are gambling our lives away for this tribe." Benji mirrored Arya in folding hands and tapped his feet in anxiety.

The military officer returned, "as it happens that the city is still required of as much personnel as possible, I'll let you slide this time. I don't know what's happening over there."

"What's really happening over there?" Arya asked with genuine curiosity.

"God knows. They would not let us communicate to the mainland. Sinukhi almighty alone should save us."

Fiana reflexively did her religious gesture of circling her heart and touching her fingers to her forehead, as the officer remembered Sinukhi. For Arya and Benji's surprise he reciprocated the gesture too.

"Are you a believer?" Benji asked moving ahead into the customs check.

"During these tough times, who's not?"  The officer raised a brow. "Trust me son, you've not seen a half of what I have up there. Savages apart, there is so much we don't know at all."

Cold sweat dripped down along Arya's spine, she recollected all the recent events in Zoramaic dunes. Sure, they didn't know anything at all.

After customs check, Arya and Benji demanded a cruiser for themselves saying that they were trained in piloting one. Reinforcement didn't mean only people, it meant resources too. The officers agreed to their demand in instant.

Within no time, they were in the lift along with hundreds of class -3 workers, all of them clad in thermo-suits and backpacks. Except for the emblems and their personal ID cum key cards, there was no telling which one was who.

Benji glanced at his graphine vehicle pass, parked at the far end before walking to the cruiser. They searched for the cruiser with same number on the new key card they had received in exchange for the bureau's graphine vehicle's key card.

"This is awfully small." Arya commented checking over the dashboard of the cruiser ship which was barely enough to accommodate the three of them.

Arya activated AVAH and commanded a sync with the new air cruiser. As their plan had played out fairly successfully, Arya went ahead and entered the destination as well.

"AVAH, disable the tracking." Benji asked , as he switched on an array of buttons on the board.

"Dr Benji, I don't advise this. It's going to put Arya and you in trouble." AVAH replied in a monotonous voice.

"Override." Arya commanded.

"System overrides. Syncing complete, destination set to Zoramaic dunes, the tribe of Hayal's valley. Weather -stormy, hailstorm expected towards the Northern side. Eclipse expected in T-minus 45 minutes with extreme gravitational conundrum."

"Okay. Let's go."
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