— Roberto —
"This is the farm," Satina said, stepping into the rusty-white platform surrounded by dirty glass. It stood at least twenty meters above the ground, towering over the plantation like a sentinel.
A shiver crawled up Rob's spine. The scene was nothing like the images shown inside the elevator. For a druid like him, this was Hell.
Rusty machines raised meters above the platform, plowing the ashen, lifeless earth and ravishing the plantation with mechanized claws and iron rollers. Thick tubes—hundreds of them—sprouted from the ground, drilling and wrapping the machinery, wiring it like capillaries filled with a purple-red iridescent liquid. It dripped, here and there, forming sanguine puddles along the metallic bones of an undead creature.
Around the machinery, a thick layer of whitish fog spread like a disease. As if it really were one, the leaves of the plants on the ground were covered with white or black blotches.
"What do you think?" Satina asked.
Rob couldn't find the words to answer; he stuttered one or two before shaking his head. His voice came breathless and weak. "The plants are dying and... shouldn't there be people working? Farmhands? What the bloody hell is all this?"
Mary propped her elbows on the handrail and her chin on her hands. "There are a lot of people here. In the HQ, I mean." She glanced at Rob and chuckled. "You seem so lost, Bear!"
He spent a moment in silence as the machines worked with loud, metallic wails and screeches. When Rob finally found his voice, it came hard and blunt. "What are they doing there and not here?"
"Feeding the machines, of course." Mary smiled.
"W-What?" A cold wave of goosebumps spread across Rob's back.
A crow hovered the fields and plummeted towards the crops. It hit something—a transparent barrier, meters above their heads—and disappeared into a cloud of dried blood, bones, and black feathers.
"They feed the machines with Vitus. Energy. Life Force," Léon answered. His eyes were set on the crimson mist the crow had turned into, watching as the feathers wafted down. The vapor of blood settled onto the invisible barrier, which rippled like the surface of a lake. "It has many names and many purposes, too. Iara and her associates developed this tech that can absorb raw Life Force. They inject it into the machines all right, but it needs to be refined first if we want to consume it. The raw thing is just too strong. It destroys you."
The muscles on Rob's neck strained. "Life Force." His breathing quickened, his words escaping in clipped streams. "The plants. Bloody hell, the marks on them! A-and... and Life Force! And the workers!"
Léon turned around to look at Roberto. "They're okay if that's what you're worried about. Also, the crops just... don't need to photosynthesize anymore, so the chlorophyll is useless. We are feeding them." His eyes rested on the plants, meters below. "They're evolving."
Rob furrowed his eyebrows and tightened his fists. He shook his head and staggered a step. Evolving.
The word echoed in Roberto's thoughts.
Evolving!
As a druid, nature was sacred to him—and to hear a sorry excuse of a human being saying he could make it better did nothing but seed anger into his heart. Rob swallowed hard and took a deep breath.
"The Life Force Invidia injects here makes the crops strong enough to grow in a poisoned soil like this. And because of the Life Force the crops absorb, people get addicted." Léon slipped his hands to his back, straightening his posture. "This is how the company makes real money. Iara sells raw Life Force to other companies, which also produce addicting products. Those who don't buy it"—Léon gave Roberto a side glance—"don't even have a chance in the market. We control the food market in New Continent, Roberto. That's what we do."
Roberto shook his head. "And you k-kill... you kill people for that? I never thought...!"
For a long and tense moment, Léon did nothing but stare at Roberto with a somber expression on his face.
Then, Satina burst into laughter.
"Holy shit!" She cackled. "His face! Leo, did you see his face? Shit!" As she laughed, a side smile curled Léon's lips. Satina slapped a hand on her thigh. "If I thought you'd be this shocked, I'd have told you before coming here." She collected an imaginary tear. "Better yet, I'd have recorded it!"
As Satina's laughs continued, Rob frowned.
Mary patted Rob's shoulder and chuckled. "Don't be ridiculous, deary-Beary. We don't kill people; what's the profit in that?"
Léon raised his voice. "People get—Tiny, stop laughing!"
"Oh, I can't... I can't!" Satina doubled over the handrail around the platform.
Rob lowered his eyes. He cringed, the tips of his fingers massaging his forehead and hiding part of his face. His voice came a tad stronger than before. "Can you bloody tell me what happens with the workers, then?"
"Look." Léon pinched the bridge of his nose. "People get tired, but they don't die. They just lose some of their personality."
"Just?" Rob echoed.
"That's not a big deal." Satina still had laughter in her words and a smile on her lips. "I mean, the world is full of nobodies, anyway. We lose nothing when a handful of dipshits become soulless." A crease formed between Rob's eyebrows. Satina rolled her eyes and said, "Soulless. People who give too much Life Force to something they don't believe in. They kind of lose their essence, which is a totally natural thing as people grow old. This used to happen even before the frozen derelicts in the Arctic changed us. We all lose Life Force when we disconnect from our true selves and turn away from who we are."
"The difference," Léon said, "is that Iara came up with this tech thing that collects the Life Force people waste. And then, she transforms it into matter. Energy. Cogito, ergo sum—but in a more practical way, paying the bills and all that."
"And flowing through tubes," Mary added, wiggling her fingers.
Satina chuckled. When she looked back at Roberto, her face hardened. "Don't take it too seriously, dickhead. After some time, you won't even think about it anymore." She shrugged. "It's easy to ignore what you don't see."
Rob schooled his expression and took a step back.
What the hell was wrong with them?
"Is it enough for today?" Satina asked. Her tone was playful, her smile cruel.
Rob bobbed his head.
Could he really ignore all this? Could he stomach what Satina said? His innards churned. Maybe he wasn't all that prepared after all.
"Good." Satina pulled a lollipop from her shirt's pocket. She glanced at the sky behind her and pointed at the dying sun. "We'll have a lot to tell you tomorrow. We'll all dine together, share a drink, then us three," she said, pointing a finger from her to Léon and Mary, "will talk and decide how trustworthy you are. Okay? Okay. I'll wait for you back at Invidia."
Rob huffed and clicked his tongue. He should feel lucky his informant was clever enough to act when she did. Smart enough to give him just the right set of information and tools and to fool even the mighty Iara Iamí-Xarãma, pretending she didn't know him.
He took a deep, calming breath. His morals would be scratched, of course—he had been raised to be a bloody hero, after all, like Rafa and Brash—but he would never stray too much from his path. Another deep breath. That's right. Be strong, Roberto. Follow the plan.
"See you soon." Satina sashayed away, her heavy boots pummeling the platform's rusty floor.
As she walked towards the elevator, Rob loosed his fists. He took another deep breath and then an even deeper one, awaking a specific tattoo on his chest. The green glimmer from his tattoo was hidden beneath the thick fabric of his hoodie.
Rob opened his eyes. First part of the plan: discover how deep Léon and those around him had plunged into evilry.
He looked at Satina. She smelled like mango and paprika. Like anguish and solitude. Like the lone teenager who lost something precious to someone who ran away.
"Wait, I'll go too!" Mary rushed, entering the elevator.
Weird. Rob couldn't catch her scent. He felt emptiness. A massive, overwhelming void... or the confusing accrual of a great many things.
"Léon, you coming?" Satina asked.
Léon stared at her and glanced at Roberto, taking in his expression. He sighed a deep and long sigh. "Go ahead; I want to talk to him."
Satina nodded. The elevator doors closed, and the silence returned.
Another crow, then dozens of them, cut the orange sky. Ugly masses of exposed flesh boiled on their bodies in the places where the radiation had started to eat them, but these were smart enough to steer away from the transparent shield. This world was fucked up from top to bottom, and only now Rob was really starting to see that.
"Roberto?"
Léon walked back to the glass protecting the platform and leaned against it, shoving his hands into his pockets. The sunlight painted his long brown braid with a soft golden contour. His olive skin and thick dark eyebrows made his white, dead eye stand out even more while his pouty lips, only shades darker than his skin, almost disappeared. He pushed a wavy lock behind his ear, then raised his gaze.
"You know, I always wanted to hear what happened to your partner." His voice was raspy and haunting, even if his tone was not at all deep. His eyes were heavy and magnetic, pulling Rob's with the same force they always had. "Tell me the story."
Rob sighed. He knew they would ask about The Gunslinger eventually, but not that fast. Rob took in a deep breath and rested an elbow on the handrail, fiddling with the sleeves of his hoodie. His eyes rolled down. "There's no story. He died."
With a nod, Léon hummed. "Want to know what I think?" His voice lowered. "That you're like any villain. You thirst for absolute control and obedience, and when you don't receive it; when you're not respected as you think you should...." He made an explosion sound, his fingers pretending to be a crescent mushroom cloud. "You destroy it. Is that what happened? Did you blow him to pieces?"
Rob's stomach flipped, churning with anger and pain. He pushed the bloody images to the back of his mind. "No. I'd never." Rob balled his hands. He should've been used to that by now—having Antônio's fate pinned on his back. Still, having Léon saying it... having Léon think he'd kill a person like that...!
"Well, I don't really care, to be honest." Léon's cold tone contrasted with the volcano inside Rob's chest. "But that's not gonna happen with my people. Hurt one of those two, and I'll kill you myself." He leaned in. "Sacou?"
Rob nodded, his lips pursed tight.
"Good." Léon's tone smoothed. "Be a good boy, and you won't have to worry."
Rob took in another deep breath. Leo's perfume was multi-layered. It had a spicy, wooden oak scent with an oriental touch and a human, natural, warm layer underneath. Masculine, he would say. With well-hidden frailty. He also smelled confusion and pain, and fear. Lots of it. But those eyes... those eyes showed nothing but solitude.
Rob breathed in again... there was something else there.
Mayor Brash had always told Roberto that people from the Old Continent—people like Léon and Satina, who lived near the coast—were weakened by the atomic bombs' radiation. Still, Rob could feel the power inside Léon. It reached out to him and brushed its ethereal fingers on his goosebump-covered skin.
Caged. Your power is caged.
Léon took a step forward, and his gaze sharpened. "Will you be a good boy, Roberto?" He placed a hand on Rob's shoulder.
That touch... it felt so good. Rob swallowed and cut the effect of his power, trying to control his heartbeat. "Yes."
His fingers slid from Rob's shoulder, and Léon took a step back, whispering, "Are you a wolf in sheep's clothing, I wonder."
Shaking his head, Rob raised his chin. "I'm a bear. Not a wolf."
Léon smirked. He crossed his arms and bumped past Rob, walking towards the elevator with a perfectly straight posture. Not a moment later, the doors opened. "That's what we're gonna see. I'm hungry. C'mon in, let's go back."