Genesis

Chapter One

           

Ryo's footsteps echoed off the white walls. It was dark and late, and he needed to get this done quickly.
A light flickered at the end of the hallway, and Ryo hesitated. The ward was completely abandoned, he knew that, but he still couldn't help to feel on edge. Ira said that this would be quick. He was inside the city, inside their pristine white walls. If he was caught, then they would know he wasn't from here. He wore all black, even his hair was a midnight colour.
Ryo didn't realize that he had stopped walking. He looked around at the numbers on the wall, indicating the different hall ways. The city of Glenn held something on this floor. Something important. They locked it away miles below ground, and the rebels could only assume it was a weapon.
Ryo turned onto the hallway he needed, and a large set of metal doors greeted him. He examined the key pad on the door.
He had just begun to hack into the city's security systems, but even then, there was no way he could get through this one. It needed an ID, fingerprint, and probably about 5 different passwords to crack it.
Ryo remembered another metal door that he had passed in the hallway. Unlike the double doors, this one was simple to hack. It slid open to reveal a rather large space, to Ryo's surprise.
He shined his flashlight over the room.
The entire back wall was lined with cabinets. Computers were hooked up to large machines and scattered across the room. To his left was an out cove; folded chairs stood facing a large rectangular window.
That must lead to the room he needed into.
He shined his flashlight over anything resembling tripwires, lasers, or alarms, but again there was nothing.
He peered into the other room through the window. It was dark, but he could just about make out the space.
"No." He whispered in awe. A bed was pushed against the corner, and was covered in wires and machines. Another corner of the room was sectioned off by a curtain, which was slightly pulled aside, allowing Ryo to view the edge of a sink. The strangest thing though, was a large fake window that took up an entire wall. It showcased a tropical paradise, complete with waves crashing against sand. The digital mirage cast light upon a figure, who stood gazing out at the fake beach.
Ryo must have the wrong floor, or the wrong room. There was no possible way that the weapon they were looking for was a person. Viowood had spent months tracking down anything they could find about Glenn's most top secret project, labeled Genesis. Ira didn't expect him to bring a person back, did she?
Maybe, Ryo could just leave now and tell her it was a fluke, but he had already come so far. Ryo noticed a door to his right. It only required card access, and lucky for him, when he was searching the room, he found that someone had left their lab coat, complete with an ID card.
The metal door slid open and the figure spun around to face him.
"Hello." Ryo breathed out slowly. He walked closer and the light from the fake window flowed against the figure. It was a girl, who was shorter than him by about more than a foot. She had chocolate brown hair that was lopsided, as if she had cut it herself.
"Can I help you?" The girl moved her hand to her hip and stared up at Ryo. How was he going to pull this off? Now, he was basically kidnapping someone.
"I need you to come with me."
"As if I would." The girl laughed. "I can easily call some security in here."
"But don't you want to be free?" Ryo asked. The girl stopped, her arm falling to her side. The girl's skin was a dark olive colour, and Ryo noticed something about her that he hadn't before. Her right eye was a sky blue, but her left was an opaque white without any pupil.
"No." The girl crossed her arms and turned back towards the window.
"No?" Ryo was taken aback. "I can get you out of here. Out of the city."  The corner of the girl's lip twitched. She laid a hand against the fake window and sighed.
"Who are you?" She turned towards him again. Ryo noticed that she had long scratch marks over her blind eye, and several other scars across her face.
"My names Ryo. Look I don't have much time. Either you're coming with me or you're not." Ryo contemplated  on whether he could actually throw her over his shoulder. She was small enough, she probably didn't weigh much either.
"My names Genesis. Great, now that we have formal introductions out of the way. Where exactly are you from." Ryo sighed and ran a hand down his face.
"Outside the city. If you don't come, then I'm gonna have to pick you up, and I don't really want to." Ryo couldn't believe that the project they've been tracking was actually a young girl. Ira would definitely be mad. Genesis looked at the open metal door and then around the room.
"Okay. I'll come."
"You will?"
"I've just. Been here my whole life almost." An alarm went off in the distance, and we both paused.
"Run!" Genesis yelled and took off toward the doorway.
A red light flashed in the hallway, and more sirens went off. The elevator light down the hall turned on.
"Shit." Ryo mouthed. He grabbed Genesis's hand and ran towards the stairs at the other end of the hall. He slammed open the door, setting off another alarm.
"Hope you like running." Genesis gripped Ryos hand harder.
"Ok."
After a couple sets of stairs, Ryo could tell that Genesis doesn't get much exercise. She was out of breath, her face red.
"Am I going to have to carry you? We need to hurry."
"No I'm fine. I'm fine."She repeated, as she walked up two steps.
The door a floor below swung open. Ryo sighed. He swept up Genesis, and was surprised by how light she actually was.
They reached the first floor just before the guards piled in through the door.
"How are we getting out of here?" Genesis asked, still trying to catch her breath.
"That's a good question." A few guards raised their guns and Ryo ducked. A spray of bullets just barely missed him. He ran up the stairs beside him, and another spray of bullets followed.
One grazed his arm and he yelped, but he clung tighter to Genesis.
When he reached the top of the staircase he burst through the nearest door. He chose the nearest door in the hallway and put Genesis down. He hacked into it, and was satisfied when it slid open without anymore alarms. He pushed Genesis through and locked the door behind them.
"Right, we need to think." Ryo racked through his head for a plan.
"They'll find us here." Genesis whispered.
"Yes, but at least we bought us some time." Ryo looked around the room. They were in an office. A floor to ceiling window was behind them, there was a small desk and a large white executive chair.
Ryo examined the window. "Is their glass bullet proof?" He asked.
"No. Not that I know of at least."
"Hmm. Why are you even in a place like this?" Ryo glanced behind at Genesis.
"I.. uh... it's a long story. I mean this is a hospital, so."
"It's not a normal hospital. Normal hospitals don't have secret basement levels."
"Well that's uh. Yah, I suppose not. I'm in here... for a reason."
"I figured out that much. You must be pretty important considering how much security they have you under." Ryo looked around the room again.
"Apparently not enough, considering you got through it." Ryo laughed. He grabbed the white executive chair and slammed it against the window. "What are you doing?!" Genesis yelled.
"Getting out of here."
"But you'll draw attention." Ryo slammed the chair against the window again shattering a large section of the glass.
"I'm okay with that." This time Ryo threw the chair against the broken glass, and the window broke. Glass shattered everywhere, and the chair fell onto the ground below. A few guards who were searching along the walls looked up.
"Now what?" Genesis mocked.
Ryo pulled something that looked like a gun from his belt. He stepped out onto the window ledge. Footsteps were echoing off the hallway walls.
"Genesis."
"Yes?"
"Hold tight." Ryo grabbed her and shot the gun at an angle upward. A wire shot out and stuck to the roof of the hospital. Genesis clung to Ryo as they started to move upward, quickly.
A bullet shot past them, and Genesis dared not look down.
They climbed up onto the roof, where more guards were waiting. Ryo agreed that they looked terrifying, they were dressed in all white uniforms. They wore light grey helmets that completely covered their faces.
"What do we do now?" Genesis whispered. Ryo aimed his grappling gun across the street at the roof of a building.
"You hold on again." Genesis clung to him, tighter than before.
They swung across the space of open grass and landed on top of the hospital wall, just nearly dodging another spray of bullets. Ryo hopped off the wall and they swung across the street, landing on the roof of the building.
"Now what's the plan?" Genesis let go of Ryo and peered over the edge.
"We need to get down there." Ryo pointed to a sewer tunnel on the road.
Genesis sighed and looked up at the sky. Ryo noticed that in the distance the sky was starting to get lighter.
"We need to get going before daylight."
"Or before they find us here." Genesis pointed to the hospital roof where more guards were starting to pile up.
"That too." Ryo pulled a rope from his belt and secured it to the gutter.  He grabbed Genesis by the waist and slowly climbed his way down the side of the building.
His winced at the pain in his arm.
"Are you okay?" Genesis asked.
"I'm fine." Ryo ground his teeth together and continued down the building.
The both of them quickly ducked into the sewer tunnel.
"Come on." Ryo grabbed Genesis's hand and pulled her along the side of the tunnel.
"Are you sure you're okay? You didn't get hit did you?"
"One grazed me. I'm fine."
"I don't think that's very fine." Genesis mumbled. "Where are we going anyways? There's no where to hide in the city."
"That's why we are going outside of the city."
"Outside of the city." Genesis froze.
"Is there a problem?" Ryo stopped walking.
"Nothing survives outside the city."
"That's what they want you to think."
"But."
"Reapers aren't that tough once you know where to hit one, and where I live there aren't any city mechs for miles."
Genesis wrung her hands together.
"Is something the matter?" Ryo questioned.
"N..no." Genesis refused to look up, but she started to walk forward again.
"I guess someone like you wouldn't be familiar with reapers huh?" Ryo stretched his hands behind his head.
"You'd be surprised." Genesis whispered.
"So you've met one?" Ryo turned around to look at her, and she glanced up. He stopped in his tracks.
He noticed what he hadn't in the dim lighting before, and even in the overhead lights of the sewers, he could still barely make it out. She was blind in her left eye; he figured that out earlier, but now he saw the long claw like scratches that reached from her eyebrow to her jaw. 
"Reapers. How does someone from the city run into a reaper? Isn't that like the one thing they ward off?"
"It's... a long story."
"Well I don't think we will run into one. At least I hope not." They both continued walking.
"By the way. Your arm has been bleeding. Are you sure you're okay?" Genesis caught up to Ryo.
"I'll let Ira deal with it."
"But shouldn't you at least..." Genesis gave up. "Who's Ira?"
"My sister. She helps run the town."
"The town? You mean there's more of you?"
"There's a bunch of people outside city walls. As long as they keep out of the cities way, there's no problems, but sometimes that's not always the case."
"So there has been cases-..." Genesis started to question but Ryo interrupted her.
"There... have been cases of cities destroying our little shanty towns... for no reason."
"Then why don't you live in the cities? It's safer."
"Define safer. There's walls, yes. They have high technology, but to live in a place that's uniform, and that-..."
"Keeps things from its citizens. I get it."
They turned a corner and a light shone through the tunnel. They both walked out into the daylight.
The sewer tunnel led straight to a large ditch.
After that, it was a long walk in the dark. Every sound made Genesis on edge, but Ryo seemed calm.