The hallway is vast, and the grey floor is stained with yellowed and crimson spots. The walls are painted mildew-grey, and industrial doors are set into the walls. Stubborn traces of tape line some of the frames, remnants of pro-Zlocan propaganda posters pasted over. The air reeks of mold, of something unnameable, and of a lingering smell of bleach, as if it was recently cleaned.
No sound is heard, save for the muffled sounds of a group approaching nearby. It's Rita and the two Zlocan Knights dragging her with her arms held up by the two. The light is dim, but enough for her to see the way in front of her. Her footfalls are muted on the tile, as she keeps her distance from the captors. A small window is set high on the door at their end, a few inches above her head. In the distance, lights flicker on and off in time with the footsteps of the Zlocan group. She stops, her legs quivering a bit from the strain of the long trek and her privates aching from the rough treatment. She can't help but bite her lip and wince at the small pain that flares up in her backside in response to her earlier beating.
She looks up to the window briefly before looking at the guards. "I'm telling you, you'll be dead men once they arrive," she says as she watches them push the button on the elevator on the right side. The one on her left only chuckles at this.
"You're in for a surprise, Rita." They both look at her, and even though they have their helmets on, she could tell of their raised brows and expectant smirks on their faces as the elevator arrives. She can hear the faint chime echoing throughout the building. One guard holds out his hand towards the buttons in front of her.
"You'll be a useless stench anyway if they do so," He says slowly as he waits. Just it's about to open, pins on the ground are heard as it gets nearby. They turn around, and see nothing else out of the ordinary, except when she looks down and lets out a gasp. This prompts the Knights to look down to find out why she did it. And the answer is there; a ball with a metallic structure, with a red dot in the upper left.
"Stun grenade! Get to-" The grenade lets out a flash of light, bright enough to get the Knights to drop Rita and cover their eyes from the brightness of it. Before they regain their sight as the light fades away, blaster fires are heard, one impacting the Knight on the cranium, while the other near the heart. The force is enough to drop them to the floor, while Rita crawls back to a wall, blinking rapidly as she tries to make sense of the situation.
"It's alright, we're here to help you!" a female voice says with a raspy tone. Rita slowly opens her eyes, she sees three individuals. One is a fair-skinned woman with thin eyes like her with black hair and a ponytail, the other is a light-skinned man with no facial features nor hair, his only distinctive trait being that of a scarred left eye with cataracts in them. The one in front of Rita, however, has a rather familiar shape to him, tan skin and near tall enough to tower both of his teammates.
"You?" she asks with a halting tone and eyes wide open. He wasn't the one she expected to see for a long time, especially in a place and time like this.
"So, Rita Su, it's been a while," the tanned man says as he pulls her up, Rita tries to give a response, but she breathes heavily from it, but she catches one while turning her head side to side.
"How did you do this, Ramon? How the hell are you even alive?"
"Improvised preparation for two weeks, turns out the Zlocans are a careless bunch who leave their toys unattended and unsupervised. It's almost surprising, to say the least. Almost," he replies as he turns towards his group. "These are Joseph and Mildred, two new buddies that I've met in this place. They were the ones who helped me get this far to carry out the plan."
"Wait, what about the cameras or any radar?" Rita asks. Ramon then points at a triangular-shaped gun that Joseph holds in his hand. "That baby right there can disrupt even the most high-tech cameras you could see, with enough time to sneak away without a hitch."
"But, they also put these on us!" Rita exclaims as she points to her heart, referring to the Catcher inside of her. " You mean that with that thing, they can't find me now, right? Right?!"
"Not exactly," Ramon replies as the elevator arrives. "If you keep running like that, they might eventually realize where you were going. But it might take awhile. We've got to get moving."
"Get moving? Where?" Rita asks as Mildred helps her walk forward to the elevator.
"They have a base set up in the middle of the desert, a few miles away from contested UEF territory," Ramon replies, "It's protected all around. We are going to raid their base and take both all the weapons we can find and back up all the prisoners they have from there. We can't let them do this anymore."
"I'll second that," Joseph says as the four of them enter the elevator "We can't let up now. As long as we have blood in our veins and anger in our hearts, we'll never let the Zlocans oppress our people."
"Yeah, you're right. And also find a way to get those things out."
"I'd say Joseph is the lucky one here, he wasn't tested yet, which could make this operation even more confusing for the Zlocans. Yes, they could detect us at any minute, but we'll get through, I promise." With that, the elevator doors close as they push a button to a floor with the number "1".
As the elevator descends, Rita turns to Ramon once more. She tries to formulate some words to say, but she stutters a bit as her posture remains rigid posture over this man. A man whose moments were only there to fill the bad moments in Julian and her life. And yet he's right there, a man who could take her to salvation.
"Relax, I won't hurt you, this is not high-school anymore," he reassures her before she relaxes her movements and sees him directly at the face.
"Say...I hate asking you this but, where's Juan?"
"Ah, that meathead from that time? Honestly, I've lost contact with him ever since the invasion started. He was last heard trying to evacuate San Diego, but he stopped answering any of my calls and messages. He was probably captured after all. Though, you know how he is with his phone..."
"Then...why would you call him? If you're so different from five years ago, why still try to reach him?" Ramon only shrugs in response.
"Guess it's because I still want to give a damn for everyone. Maybe if I just talk to him again, things will change."
Rita can feel tears starting to form in her eyes, but she wipes some away with her left hand before they can descend from her eyes. "What if it doesn't work?" Ramon looks her in the eye before speaking in a calming tone.
"Rita, if it doesn't work then I suppose it's goodbye. For now at least." Rita nods in response. And yet, there's still unease over her ordeal, especially when it comes to seeing Julian in such state like that.
"Also, Julian's here, but I think he's not how he used to be."
"What do you mean?" Ramon asks with a raised brow as the elevator dings. "Oh, there's the floor we're on. We'll talk later."
The elevator opens, but before they can leave, Rita looks at him with puffy yet dark eyes. Her posture is also loose. "Regardless of what happened to him, promise me that you or anyone rescue him. I want to see him again once this is all over. Please..." Ramon nods before leaning on the elevator door so that it doesn't close.
"No problem, right?" He glances at Mildred before he walks out of the elevator. They step near a rail near a staircase that takes any person downstairs. It's in the form of large hangar, with enough space to fill anything in every corner of the place. The group also sees the empty corridor. The hallway is full of holes from the grenades that were thrown into it, but the damage is done. There's blood splattered against the wall and ceiling, and the floor is covered with broken glass and shards of metal. A handful of Zlocan Knights are downstairs, calibrating the rifles while staying vigilant with the trucks stationed nearby.
"I heard this is the most dangerous escape route in this prison. Every attempt to escape is met with extreme prejudice, but they're so constant that there's hardly time to clean up everything," Mildred says.
"How do you know?" Rita asks.
"Chit chat from the guards. The old trick, you know," she replies with a smirk towards her. "And as we calculated from every shift they take, we took the one in which the lightest troops are the only ones stationed to patrol. Well, should we go?"
"Yup," Ramon replies as they approach the stairs.
"I'll stay behind and give you guys some breathing room. Be careful!" Joseph says as he aims his rifle to the group of Zlocans. Ramon nods in reply before he gives Rita a hand and helps her up the stairs.
"Knock knock!" Ramon shouts as he fires some blaster fire at three Zlocan Knights, impacting their chests as they collapse to the floor.
"Who's there!?" one of them answers.
"Your weaklings!" Ramon replies as he fires multiple blasts of blaster fire at the same time. He shoots two Zlocans in the chest and the head, causing them to topple to the ground, while the third one manages to dodge the blaster.
"Ramon! Don't fight them alone!" Rita exclaims as she grabs onto Ramon's arm tightly as he continues shooting bullets into the remaining Zlocans.
"I'm good, Rita. We just need to find out the best route and then we should be able to take down the rest easily." Before Rita could protest any further, Mildred takes out another grenade from her belt and hurls it toward the Zlocans taking cover in one of the trucks. Before the Zlocans had the chance to react to the incoming grenade, The explosion sends shockwaves through the air, knocking the Zlocans unconscious and away from the truck. The explosion also knocks the truck away from the wall and into another truck, though the explosion does nothing to the vehicles or the walls.
"Damn, these guys put some protection on these trucks," Ramon says as he approaches the trucks. He opens the truck and looks at the box inside of it, it has a label that says "BUZZARD ROCKETS". He then looks at the others and nods. "This is it. We got ourselves a couple of Buzzards, ready for deployment."
"Buzzards? I don't follow," Rita says as she stands next to Ramon, who opens the box and takes out the Buzzard.
"Mildred, you'll have to tell us where the best escape route is. We'll take the Buzzards and take out any guards along the way. As soon as we're out of the zone, we'll get away as far as possible."
"Right, let's move," Mildred says as she checks the console nearby, with an image displaying the door that leads them to the exit, while Joseph heads downstairs.
"So, how many times did you get caught?" Rita asks as she climbs atop the truck's hood. "You always get out, right?"
"Nah," Ramon replies as he gets on top of the truck's cab, "I've been caught twice. Punishment was a beating with metal clubs. Each beating harder than the last. But don't worry, I'll give them the triple once I meet them again," he says as he winks at her.
"Right. Also, before you can drive away, may I check outside to see if it's clear before I head back in?" Ramon nods in response. She then sprints to the tunnel to reach the exit as Mildred presses a button, then leaves the post to head outside. Mechanisms are heard in the place as the large exit opens vertically, revealing the orange dusk with rocky terrain in front of them.
The trio approaches the door that leads outside. It looks like any other door they've seen along this trip, but they open it cautiously. Mechanisms are heard in the place as the large exit opens vertically, revealing the orange dusk with rocky terrain in front of them. The sight of another vehicle parked nearby shocks Rita and Ramon as they stand behind a barrel. The truck was facing away from them, so they take the chance to get inside the vehicle. Joseph sits in the back while Ramon sits in the driver's seat. He drives the truck away slowly, turning the truck's lights on.
"So, that's Mildred for you, huh?" Rita asks as she looks down the road. "She helped you out with that plan, huh?"
"Yeah, she's a good one," Ramon replies as they drive down the road with caution. The two of them tend to peek at their surroundings to make sure no one was nearby the truck. Both of them remain in position, but Rita is starting to feel tired of this.
"What's with you and those people nowadays?" Ramon only chuckles in response alongside his teammates.
"It's just pure chance of luck, that's all." Rita only shrugs as she prepares to step outside, but before she can do so, he hits the exit as if she's hitting a wall. She stumbles backward for a bit as she covers her nose which received most of the impact from the seemingly frozen exit.
"Rita, what's wrong?"
"I don't know...for some reason, I can't go outside. Something's preventing me from getting out." As he pulls into the parking lot, he makes a U turn and parks the car. When he turns off the engine, he jumps out of the car and approaches the entrance door. He goes outside and tries opening the door, which he realizes it feels rock solid as well, almost like a portrait in front of them.
"What the hell? Is this some kind of twisted joke?" Ramon asks as he looks around the vicinity.
"Didn't you say this is one of the few escape routes that they never clean up?"
"I guess they must have installed some sort of failsafe after all," Ramon mutters as he returns to the truck. But right as he turns, a blaster fire is heard and impacts Joseph in the head, the impact being enough to knock him back from the passenger seat and fall down to the ground. His head is bleeding heavily with a hole in the middle and a dent at the side.
"Joseph!" Ramon calls as he runs to the truck's back and jumps on Joseph's body, trying to stop the bleeding but his eyes and body are all stiff and static, with no sign of any pressure at all.
"Ramon..." Mildred says as she slowly raises her hands up on something that is enough to make her body freeze over, with the sounds of footsteps being heard. As Ramon and Rita turn around, they too freeze over what they see, all while digits appear in every corner of the place.
"You seem to have performed well beyond our expectations. You surely know how to make any sort of great escape without a hitch in the world. But unfortunately, we don't operate that easily," a male voice says as the whole background is digitized, reversing back to what it seems to be a large, and plain room with patterns of many shapes with a shifting staircase, with lights turning on to reveal the subjects in place. There are windows in the upper corners as well, with a handful of observers outside. The three inmates can't believe all of this. Their chance to escape away from the likes of them and they haven't reached as far as step 0. The one who steps in front of them is a tall-man with a grey uniform with some medals in them, with the same yellow skin as all Zlocans.
"H-how? You mean all the info we've gathered of this entrance, the seemingly low number of guards we took out to escape? All the trucks placed here? All the deaths too!?"
"Yes. We planned it all out carefully, but it appears that you didn't leave any traces behind. So, let's see how your little group will work together next time," the man says as he walks towards them. They shake and breathe heavily over this ordeal as they try to think of something else, yet it feels all so futile.
"But why us?" Ramon asks, still shaken by the experience that has just occurred.
"We wanted to test your loyalty. That's all. A few days ago, I sent a few of my soldiers to watch you to gauge your progress as you planned in your cells. If you had not been found, I would assume you would have failed miserably. But lo and behold, you do have the skills to be part of Project Joshua after all." The man smiles widely as he looms over the three test subjects of this simulation. All this time, freedom was never in their grasp in any moment, not even in the shootouts.
"Show them." Those are his words he stops pressing the button. And just as both individuals are about to pull the trigger, they start to spasm in every limb, as well as they scream. It seemed like they were having a seizure, as their limbs are jerking violently, but the man keeps smiling as he watches them as they collapse to the floor, still jerking in all directions. Rita can't do anything but observe without being able to do anything to save them. After a moment or two of the two jerking out, they stop. Ramon can only faintly breathe as he tries to extend his hand to the officer to no avail, as he then drops down to the floor. Mildred's eyes begin to flicker rapidly as she starts shaking before she stops. And so does her breathing. Rita's breathing intensifies as she steps back from the Zlocans still aiming their guns at her.
"This can't be...is this how it ends for us...?"
"Yes. That's the failsafe mechanism made for the Catchers. If we can't manage to destroy you on the outside, then it's better to do it on the inside." Tears fall down from Rita's eyes as she kneels down in front of him, try to regain her composure from such revelations. But before she can do anything else, a stun blast hits her in the chest, knocking her down without making any other move.
"Rita Su. Grand Officer Ohrist may think of you as a failure, but I'd rather differ. You may still be useful for us, one way or another. Now, you'll be placed in the same room as before, and you'll be given two months to come up with an answer. If you still refuse...then you better wish you were never born." The Knights then pick her up as they all leave the the test room while picking up the bodies of Ramon and Mildred to be sent to somewhere else. With every trick a Human attempts, the Zlocu would outsmart twice as much.
And Humanity may have to counter with every ounce of their body whatever it takes.