We crossed through the woods much faster than during the previous night, not just because of the urgency of the situation, but also because I was wearing casual clothes and proper shoes this time. In a hurry to leave, I had tied my wet hair into a knot, and a trickle of cold water was now running down the back of my neck, making me shiver. I fastened my pace further.
As if we were worried that the forest itself might eavesdrop on anything we said, a nervous silence had hung between us from the moment we had snuck off the normal path in the campus park, and had followed the off-road trail deep into the forest. Only when we passed the wire fence and the ruins of the lost sector came into sight, Moon began to speak.
"Thanks for coming with me," she said. "'I'm glad I didn't have to go alone. This place is... kinda creeping me out."
"Of course. Wait – you find it creepy during the day but not at night?" I asked, raising my eyebrows at her.
She shrugged. "I find it a creepy at night too, but I'm usually more drunken then so I don't mind. Besides, it's the thought that somebody else is there that really unnerves me."
Perhaps it was due to the fact that I had spent a significant amount of time in simulations of ruins, but I was more fascinated than creeped out. In the broad daylight, I discovered numerous things that I had barely taken notice of before. For instance, I now got a much better look at the fantastic graffiti that covered almost every wall. Surreal images, colorful shapes and figures and artistic lettering of tags and slogans adorned the ruins all around us, some in places so high up that I wondered how the artists had gotten up there. Some if it looked very old and faded out, but coincidentally, or perhaps through some unspoken agreement of respect for previous generations of artists, had never been covered up.
In the shadow of a side alley, I stopped to take a closer look at one of the older graffiti. This one was pale and the paint was flaking, but the other artists had taken meticulous care not to infringe upon the boundaries of the piece, so it stood out from its colorful surroundings. The image was roughly one square meter sized and depicted a cat with a bee sitting on its nose. "Bugging you?" was written above them. The cat didn't look bugged, though, it stared down at the bee rather fascinatedly. Next to it, I recognized an illegible mixture of letters of the old Chinese and Latin alphabets, and a string of numbers.
2115-03-26, I read. A date? Is that even possible?
We had used a different calendar system for decades, so I had to think about it for a moment. That would have barely pre-dated the war, and even though many of the dilapidated structures in this area seemed to be at least based on foundations from the pre-war era, I highly doubted that the motive could have survived over four hundred years, even if the building might as well have already stood back in the day. Nonetheless, the thought inspired a tingling sensation at the back of my skull that I often felt whenever I came across something very old that excited my curiosity. But I had no time to dwell on my odd finding now, as intrigued as I was with the letters that I couldn't read.
Moon had already walked on, but stopped at the end of the alley to peek around the corner toward the entrance that we had taken the previous night. I stepped up behind her and looked over her head. We spotted half a dozen vehicles parked in front of the hangar, their sleek, black exterior glistening in the sunlight. Automobiles were a rather rare sight in Pharos, most people relied on public transport such as the monorail or subway, and automated cars were mainly used to transport goods around the city. These, however, were passenger cars.
"Can you see that in the back?" Moon whispered, "Is that a logo of sorts?"
I squinted my eyes and could make out a white symbol within a thin circle on the side of the black vehicle.
"It's a capital lambda," I suggested. "Or perhaps an upper case A?"
"I've never seen that before. Is that an Enforcer unit designation?" she asked.
I shook my head. "None that I have ever heard of."
Suddenly, a man stepped out of the side entrance of the building and approached one of the cars. Hastily, we pulled back into the shadows of the alley to avoid being spotted.
"Maybe it was a mistake to come here," Moon said and began to bite the nail of her thumb nervously. "If they catch us..."
I peeked around the corner again. The man wore a grey outfit that seemed to be a uniform of sorts, but I couldn't recognize it as anything familiar from this distance. And if they weren't from the academy, they were most likely from a private company.
"Whoever they are, they seem to have no more right or business being here than the two of us," I pointed out as I watched the man pace around the cars nervously.
"Is that supposed to reassure me?" she asked doubtfully.
I put my hands on her shoulders, and chose my words in an attempt to calm her nerves just as much as I tried to calm my own.
"They're clearly not academy, so they have no authority over us and won't know who we are. But we should probably stay out of sight, just in case. We will just... sneak in, find your com and be out before they even notice us."
She looked at me with a doubtful frown.
"Trust me, it'll be fine," I said, willing some confidence into my voice. "Do you know another entrance besides this one?"
She nodded and led the way through the alleys again. As we passed the cat and bee graffiti once more, I had the unsettling impression that the cat was no longer staring down at the insect on its nose, and instead following us with its gaze.
Now you're bugging me... I thought, shaking my head to clear myself of the eerie feeling.
We made our way to other side of the hangar building, where the main entrance had once been. Even from afar, we could spot more black cars parked there.
"Oh for fuck's sake," she cursed. "They're everywhere."
"Okay. Calm down for a second," I ordered her. "Do you know where exactly you lost your com? Is it in the main room?"
"It's in the colosseum. I think I lost it on the way out after the alarm."
I looked over into the direction of the entrance. There was no sight of the owners of these cars, so they were probably all inside. If there were two people around for each of the vehicles we had seen, there were probably at least two dozen of those guys in there, somewhere. Still, it was a big place, which put the odds of not running into any of them in our favor.
"That room should be right along that corridor behind the entrance, right?" I figured, piecing together my memory of the layout of the building from last night. "Can you check the perimeter now so we can be sure that the room is empty? Then we can sneak in, grab it and get out while they are busy somewhere else."
She pulled out the tablet that she had brought along and tapped something on it. A few seconds later she held it up to show me a lopsided, fuzzy transmission from inside the Colosseum. The camera of the device was half covered with something, but I could make out the familiar tribune-like platforms of the room.
"They're still there," Moon said with trepidation as she pointed to a corner of the screen.
I spotted two figures – only their legs were visible from this angle. One wore a dark grey suit with blue accent marks somewhat reminiscent of an academy uniform, but the design was unlike anything I had ever seen before. The other wore heavy boots and what I reconized as the lower half of a black combat suit.
"Holy shit," I blurted out. "That's a Commando!"
"A Talos Commando? Here?" Moon's voice was so high-pitched that she almost squeaked in her distress. "But why-"
She fell silent as fragments of the conversation between the two people became audible.
"We searched the building, ma'am," a voice from the off reported. "Lots of old tech, some of it still functional, but it's abandoned."
"See? I told you so. Now can we finally leave this place?" a male voice asked. It seemed to come from the person in the grey uniform. "There's nothing here."
"Stop your whining," the female commando replied gruffly, "There's clearly something here, I mean, look at this!"
She turned around and probably gestured towards the makeshift rigs at the bottom of the tribune.
"Nothing related to our investigation though." The man spoke in a tone that indicated he was rolling his eye sin annoyance. "Why do you care so much about those garbage rigs? They're clearly for humans. Do you wish to take them for a spin or what?"
Humans? What is he talking about? I wondered.
Acros the tablet, my gaze met Moon's, and judging from the deep furrow between her brows, she was probably wondering about the same question.
"Watch your tongue, Officer Hook," the Commando growled at the man with emphasis on his title, causing him to tense up immediately.
"This is still my investigation," the woman continued, "no matter how many of you nerds they put me up with, I am calling the shots here. And I have a gut feeling that something here is off."
She turned and seemed to look around the room. Then she took a step towards the camera, her shiny black combat boots and muscular, armor-clad calves coming into better view. No doubt about it - that was a commando uniform. The other uniform, however, I had never seen before. What the hell where those people doing here?
"Oh shit. She's coming closer," Moon pointed out in a breathless, panicked whisper. "If she spots the com-"
At her words, I could feel another cold shiver running through my body, and not just because of my damp hair. Whoever these people were, if a Commando was with them, it meant that their actions had to be sanctioned by the Moirai.
I met Moon's gaze again. She wore a look of worry and fear on her face, and her hazel-colored eyes were swimming in tears, despite her efforts to blink them away. I had never seen her so scared before. And while I felt unsettled by what was going on as well, I swallowed my unease at the sight of her dismay.
I weighed our options. We could just wait and hope they would overlook the com, but if they ended up finding it, Moon would be in trouble for sure. But what was worse than the fact that we were technically trespassing, was that they were clearly looking for something in the hangar – something that my gut feeling told me under no circumstances either of us should become associated with.
I clenched my hands into fists and straightened my back as a wave of determination overcame and invigorated me. Moon was my best friend, and it was out of the question that I would let anything happen to her. It was time to take action.