The robot's somehow bigger on the inside than the outside. Not much of a surprise considering what I've seen so far, but from how Pearl condemns every little engineering choice, it's supposed to be much bigger. Much, much bigger. And it's not supposed to look like an office meeting room with a few closed-doors control rooms off to the sides.

Another armored figure looks over at us as we get close. A mess of wires descends from the ceiling to wrap them tight, connect to their armor, and make them look utterly trapped by the robot. They cough dryly, then sniffle like a cold managed to get through their Class' mild immunity.

"Is this the only one?" they ask in a heavily distorted voice.

Call nods. "The other signatures weren't accessible. Either they're trapped in the tunnels below or are falses generated by the monsters; you saw how our visuals cut out the second we got here."

"Radiation," The pilot shudders. "Poor souls. Should I radio in and try to get clearance?"

"Clearance for what? To push the operation a few days forward before we're ready, just to save a few potential false signals?" Call motions for me to take a seat as he goes for a set of bars behind the pilot. "Do you know how many favours I had to call in just to get us two out here in a mech?"

"Too many," the pilot says somberly. "Sorry, Call. I know this means a lot to you."

Call laughs bitterly. It sounds a little too real to be a bluff. "Sometimes I wonder if the higher ups actually care about the people. Broadcast that to headquarters and I'll have you court marshalled with me."

The pilot laughs as if the threat is a joke. "I promise. So what now? Right back to headquarters once we ID the refugee?"

"You know it," Call hands me a plastic waterbottle and takes a seat next to me. "So who are you, mystery woman? How the hell did you manage to survive all this time stuck under a rock? And please don't tell me you have a Class."

He puts extra emphasis on the word 'please', but I'm not stupid enough to need that reminder. The preservation wants to control all the world's Classes. Putting a massive target on the back of my head at the start of an infiltration mission would be the dumbest move I could make.

The pilot grunts and struggles to shift to look at me. Their armor is… unremarkably plain, save for ports for the wires and cables that connect to their armor. Steel grey, close like a bodysuit, and with a helmet that's an opaque black glass dome like an astronaut's. Flickers of colour shine through the darkness, but it's nothing I can make out.

"I want to know, too," the pilot echoes. "This place has been a ghost town since it got destroyed. Why were you here in the first place?"

I shakily uncap my waterbottle and take a quick mostly-closed-mouth sip. It's nothing special, but I play up the liquid travelling down my throat like it's the best thing I've tasted in weeks. Both my 'hosts' shift with what I hope is pity as I cough out the last few seconds of the motion, wipe my lips, and pull the bodysuit back over my mouth.

"Well, I live around here. Um… used to live, I guess…" I trail off somberly and stare off into empty space. "I saw the woman who lived here was wanted by the preservation, and so I kind of… came back to try and catch her. It's stupid, I know, but I didn't get evacuated the first time, so I just felt like I needed to try something. Then the ground collapsed, and a rock fell over the hole just barely missing me, and… and I only had a few days' worth of food…"

I trail off with an audible swallow. "Sorry for making you come here."

"No, no, this is our job! You didn't do anything wrong, trying to catch one of the worst criminals this world has right now!" the pilot assures me. "Maybe just… don't walk into blockaded cities next time?"

Call smacks the pilot with the back of his hand. "Didn't you hear her? We missed her the first go-around. She never walked into the city because she never stepped foot out of it. Can't exactly say she's breaking the rules if she never actually stepped through the no-go zone, can we?"

The pilot makes a noise that sounds like regretting that they opened their mouth. They start to stammer something out, then turn away from us and start fiddling with the wires. Massive amounts of energy flows down from the ceiling into the pilot's suit as the mech itself starts to rumble. I can't imagine why they bothered taking an entire mech when they didn't expect to fight anyone, but hey, I'm not a logistics expert.

"We'll be back in two hours," the pilot says, completely cutting off the conversation from before. "You'll be questioned and catalogued when we get there, and after that, you'll be assigned somewhere to live and a job to do. If you're special enough, you might even get chosen for a Class Coin!"

I resist every urge I have to be sarcastic and make myself even smaller. "Would I have to… fight… those things… if I had one?"

"Ah. Um. No," the pilot says briskly, their tone suddenly… icy. Almost disdainful. "Forget I said that. You're obviously not interested."

The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

Pearl leans forward and squints at the pilot. "Do you think they're suspicious?"

"I think they're just a Class supremacist. Or… well, something like that," I reply with a thought. "Maybe not exactly, since they didn't look down on me when I said I didn't have a Class, but… honestly, I have no clue. Could even be that piloting the mech has a weird effect on their voice."

"Hm. I didn't even think about that," Pearl muses. "...Okay, I thought about it, and I think you're wrong. When that person tries to leave, just let them. They'll forget about you in a few seconds."

Perfect; that's exactly what I want out of this. Get in, be completely nondescript, and do some recon. Then, if we can confirm that Clutter's invisibility is better than the Preservation's sensors–and their psychics–he can do some more in-depth information gathering. Still not quite sure how everything's going to work, since I haven't even seen a model of the Preservation's main base, but it can't be that much bigger than the resort. A few people over a few weeks should be enough to find all the backdoors and breachables that we need.

I catch Call glancing nervously at me through my awareness. He's been fine so far. As long as he can keep up the facade that he's been keeping up since I last saw him, this'll all be fine and dandy. If he keeps shooting glances when he thinks nobody's looking, though, then we might have a problem.

Somebody will catch on. And if they catch on, then they might call in someone to read his mind. That's the absolute worst-case scenario. So what am I going to do if it happens?

I lean back in the chair, make myself as small and helpless as physically possible, and start mapping out some plans to viciously–and anonymously–murder a psychic. Pearl chimes in with about as much enthusiasm as I've come to expect from her, which is to say, a disturbing amount. And as the minutes fly by, the mech shaking like a commercial airliner under my feet, I come to a slightly disturbing conclusion.

It'll be way easier than I thought.

"We're here."

I look up from staring at the floor and a mental conversation with Pearl. The pilot motions towards the exit as the magic drains through the wires connected to them, then pop off one by one with a slight suction noise. They roll a shoulder with a wince and then just… leave. The door opens for them, they walk out, and I get the feeling that I'll never see them again.

"Did they have a Class?" I ask Call.

He nods. "I can't tell you what it is, but yes; she does have a Class. Can you stand just fine?"

With a slight forced wobble in my step, I stand and walk over to the exit. Call steps up beside me and gingerly puts a guiding hand on my shoulder like he would a tiger that someone claimed 'didn't bite'. I grin underneath the fabric hiding my face and walk out onto the walkway that connects our mech to a dozen others, each hooked up to cables carrying more magic to the things. A refueling station slash dock, if I had to make an assumption.

"Okay, so here's the deal; you'll have very limited access until I can sign you in, and then I'm responsible for you. After that you'll have slightly less limited access, but still pretty damn limited."

Call steps out onto the main connecting walkway with a clang of boots on metal and waves to someone coming over with a toolbox. They quickly exchange a few words, a few glances, and the muscular woman in clean coveralls nods in understanding. An understanding that involves her looking directly at me with a hardened resolve even though all he did was 'introduce' me.

"Ay, good to see you safe and sound," she says and walks right up to me, toolbox in hand. "Hope you can do whatever you're lookin' to do here. As long as you don't catch the eye of someone for one reason or another, new arrivals get plenty of space. Brass can't bother checking every charity case they bring in, you know?"

I raise an eyebrow and wring my waterbottle with both hands. "But what if people are dangerous?"

"Dangerous? Ha!" the woman barks a short laugh and shakes her head. "The things I'd say if we weren't under surveillance right now. Just know that the people up top? They'd prefer not to deal with anyone in your spot at all. Don't be surprised if refugees stop being accepted into the main complex within the year and–"

Call coughs, cutting the woman off. "Lizzie."

The woman–Lizzie–sneers and plants her free hand on her hip. "Right, right, don't talk about that stuff, even if it's being broadcast everywhere. Sorry for running my mouth, newbie. For all I'm complaining, us low-to-mid level Preservation people really do want what's best for you. For everyone, really. Just… try to remember that for later, yeah?"

"I'll… try?"

She nods to herself, as if that's the best I can do, and walks right past me to get at the mech. Her toolbox gently nudges my arm as she goes, and something slips out of it to rest perfectly in one of my pockets. I ignore it the best I can, but the thing feels… strange. Magical. It also feels like a simple screw poking my thigh.

Without another word, Call leads me through the hangar and into a room that's a two-in-one locker room and checkpoint. An old man sits snoring with his feet up on the desk, eyes completely open and staring at both of us as we walk by from under a ballcap that hides his face from the obvious camera in the room. His gaze hardens when his eyes meet mine, but it's the hardening of resolve–not of suspicion.

There's no doubt in my mind that both this man and Lizzie know who I am. Which means Call's working with more people here than I thought. That could make things easier, or far, far harder. Only time will tell which is which.

Call taps his knuckles to a scanner near the only other door in the room. I turn at the sound of a confirmatory beep as the door slides open with a pneumatic hiss, revealing a sprawling metropolis that stretches for… uh… I can't even tell. The horizon falls before the edge of the city. Everything sparkles with cleanliness, parks visibly dot the landscape, and I can hear a schoolbell ring somewhere off in the distance. The only thing that's even slightly off is the shape of the buildings, the roads, the parks… everything is a perfect rectangle. Perfectly flat, too, somehow… and it looks… even more perfect, in an unsettling way, but I can't quite place why.

"Welcome to paradise," Call says sarcastically. "As long as you don't pick at any ragged edges you find this is the best place in the world. Start looking a little harder, though, and… well…"

He motions for me to step outside. "You'll see soon enough."

Next chapter will be updated first on this website. Come back and continue reading tomorrow, everyone!

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.