We spent a while in the swimming pool. I sat in the corner and complained about the bad food. I was anxious to keep going. Nerdy was injured, as was Opium. And one of the otaku needed new pair of shoes. Like I would be bothered with any of that. I was kinda comfy, even though my clothes were damaged and I hadn't taken a shower in days.
When we finally left the swimming pool, I got to walk behind Opium, but in front of Nerdy. I didn’t feel safe being in front of him. Who knew what he would do, missing his mommy. Luckily Opium had had a serious talk with Nerdy about why you shouldn't shoot towards your team. It calmed me down a bit, but not completely.
We climbed a number of stairs up. Apparently the otaku, or whoever decided our routes in the Arcology, had come up with an easy route, for the time being anyway. We walked through some kind of prison floors. Houses were altered to prisons. There were lots of prisoners.
Others started thinking maybe we should save the prisoners. They didn’t have a bright future ahead of them. I remember the test subjects we had seen a couple of days earlier. They were horrible. I also remembered my own time as a test subject maybe a bit too well. Part of me wanted to save these people, other part wanted to make them suffer. They were people, so it was reason enough to make them suffer. I didn’t talk about my thought to others though; I didn’t want them to think I was weak-minded. I didn’t want them to think I felt compassion.
We kept on going. Others thought that we couldn't save the prisoners at that time. They said we could do that when we were going back. I agreed, but still kept it to myself.
At some point the otaku, who were coming behind us, managed to get in front of us when we switched directions. They led, and we followed. The atmosphere was creepy. Quiet, deserted. It made me feel a bit on edge. I tightened my grip from my shotgun.
The otaku went past a large kong. On the other side of the kong there was three persons without auras. They looked like dead bums. No one wanted to go and see if they really were dead bums. When we were walking past them I heard a noise. I turned my gun towards the sound and Random asked who was there. The one of the bums started to move, trying to get up. I got scared and shot it. The second one got up and the third was sitting down. We shot them to pieces. One of them managed to shoot me before that, and it hurt, not for long though.
After we had destroyed the bums, which were revealed to be some kind of robots, again, we ran again. The person we were bringing to Deus, the person we had grabbed from Hong Kong, Aneki, was there with us. I didn’t remember this earlier, but he was there. Apparently he was the key to destroy Deus. Well, anyway, we ran after Ronin, Dodger and Aneki. They were heading to a house. I noticed a kid who had been shot at, and was down, and grabbed him with me. One of the team grabbed another otaku, and after we had been running a while we stopped to assess the situation. One of the otaku was dead, again. The girl who had crush on Nerdy, her name was Wendy, was shot as well, but she’d live. Others pulled out their first aid kits and started working with the wounded. Shrew’s spirit was called to help as well. I almost got bored before we left again.
Several floors higher I smelled something really disgusting. Rotting bodies. There was a heap of them nearby. And next to the heap there was two human-shaped creatures, and they were also visible in the Astral Plane. I was hoping they’d be something like me, but Rugh said that they were most probably ghouls. They ran away when they spotted us. We didn’t run after them, so apparently they weren't dangerous. I didn’t want to ask more.
On the same floor there was food. I wanted to have fish, because it was some kind of meat. Others wanted to eat fruit. I suppose they were good or something. I have never been a big vegetable-eater. I had options. The fish was perfect change from the energy bars. It tasted fresh and real, not at all like the shitty energy bars.
We also spotted some rats on the floor. They were magical rats, because some of them were hidden from the physical eye. When I hunted them down and killed them, they were not hidden anymore. They tasted so much better than the energy bars.
On some floor higher up we ran into a control room with some blue-eyed people. Opium threw a grenade in there and staggered to me. She bumped into me, and I staggered a bit from the shock wave as well, and bumped into Nerdy. I really hoped he wouldn't be scared and shoot me because of that…
Then I had to take my mind off of Nerdy, because one blue-eyed person ran there with a katana. He attacked, and I pulled my sword to attack back. The hallway seemed to be a bit too small for my broadsword, but it was the only good melee weapon I had at that moment. The sledgehammer was tightly bound to my backpack, and I didn’t have a new tomahawk. Or a shorter sword. I decided to buy a short sword if I ever got out alive.
The blue-eyed person fought me and Opium. He cut my armor into shreds. Finally I managed to pierce him from the stomach with my sword. He fell down to his knees, dropped the katana and squeezed the edge of my sword. I twisted the sword a bit, to make it even more painful. Then Rugh shouted something about explosion-danger. I ran after the others. There was no explosion.
I realized I was half-naked. My clothes had been almost ripped off in the battle, and I didn’t have time to change. I counted for a second, and came to the conclusion that I didn’t have time to stop running, pull new clothes from the backpack, take the broken ones off, dress up with new clothes and ask Opium to borrow me her other armor. And I had noticed her clothes didn’t fit me anyway. And I didn’t think she would borrow them to me just because. I had a habit of breaking everything I wore.
We ran through the living-floor quickly. I was the first one. It must’ve looked funny. A group of runners and kids led by a half-naked woman. I hoped no one spotted us and shoot, because it would've been really painful for me to get hit.
We almost reached the stairs, I opened the door, and we heard a bling from the elevator next to us. I turned towards the elevator with my shotgun ready. Rugh stepped past me. He had something in his hand. It was a grenade. He threw it to the elevator and grabbed me by the neck as he ran for cover. I was about to run when I realized he was throwing a grenade, but I wasn't as quick as he was. I decided to let him drag me. It wasn't very high on my spirit to let a troll drag me around like a rag doll. Well, not like a rag doll, but I don’t think he even noticed my weight.
He threw himself in a door. Opium jumped over us and Random stepped next to us. Then Nerdy hit the door and fell on us. Then the grenade exploded. Ohh great. It was phosphorus-grenade. Some of the phosphorus spilled on me, even though I tried to avoid it. Then I got up and kept going with the others and screamed as the phosphorus burned on my skin and remaining clothes. It took a couple of minutes to burn off. Smoke was coming from my burned skin and clothes. Then it started raining again. I’m very, very puzzled about this phenomenon. I just didn’t want to ask about it from the others, because I thought they would think I was stupid. I didn’t want to seem ignorant, so I rarely ask about anything, even though I don’t know. I normally wait and find out about things myself.
Some of the otaku needed new shoes. They had been running on the phosphorus. At that point I needed a completely new set of clothes.
We kept going up the stairs. On one landing there was a dead-end. Others didn’t think we should keep going up at that point. They decided we should break the place where the door had been. There were some beetles inside the wall that were active in the Astral Plane. I had never seen anything like that, but figured they wouldn't cause any problems if we broke down the wall. Rugh started hammering the wall with his gun. I took my sledgehammer and started hammering the wall as well. Others were keeping an eye on the other door. We assumed we were followed. I don’t wonder why.
After we had hammered the wall for a while Rugh called some spirits to help us. They went to the other side of the wall and started hammering from there. From the corner of my eye I noticed a spirit starting to materialize next to Opium. I warned Rugh.
When there was a big hole on the wall I decided to go and kill the spirit that was fighting with the rest of the group. I told others about my plan, asked that someone would grab my stuff from the floor and transformed. I walked calmly near the spirit. Then I leaped straight to the spirit. I extracted all my claws and ripped the spirit to shreds with one hit. I was happy about the kill. The I turned around and followed the others. I found the person who had grabbed my stuff and started running next to him. He seemed a bit startled.
We ran through a big hall, but luckily we didn’t have any problems. I was strong to fight the spirits, but guns were too much for me right now. If there had been guns and heavily armored people, I would've died for sure. I didn’t even want to start thinking about all the robots.
We found another dead-end. There was an alarm, and fire-doors closed. I was a bit startled, but then I relaxed. Rugh had started looking for explosives from his backpack. He seemed to have some problems locating the explosives so I took my backpack from the person carrying it and took it to Rugh. He took the explosives and started to plant it. I watched for a while and thought I would've done some things differently. As he looked like he knew what he was doing I didn’t bother to transform and tell him what he did wrong.
We went a bit back and Rugh detonated the explosives. We kept running. The person carrying my stuff seemed to hesitate when I kept following him. I didn’t care. I had talked about lots of stuff, but I had never done anything to attack anyone in our team. Well, with the exception of Nerdy, but he started it anyway.
We passed by some mazes, and found ourselves in some deserted floors. We found a nice little spot to rest for a while. Opium gave me her body armor, which was almost intact. It only had some damage from the katana. Others helped me to put it on so that it would not be baggy.
While others were resting and Random took care of the wounded me and Rugh went to look for shoes for the otaku that needed a pair.
We found a sportswear-shop. There were some sneakers the otaku needed. We went to the shop, packed the sneakers in a bag and Rugh took lots of socks with him also. I thought that seemed a good idea. I hadn't changed my socks in ages. I didn’t even take my boots off, unless I transformed. The smell was just horrible. I thought I should buy new boots when I got out. If I got out alive.
We were just leaving the shop when Rugh realized something. He threw his bag over some things. I didn’t know why he did that, but I did the same thing. I thought Rugh knew what he was doing. He didn’t laugh at me when I did like him, so apparently I did the right thing.
After hours of rest we returned to our journey. Stairs. More stairs. Hell, even more stairs. Always stairs. It started feeling like shit. Climbing a while, shooting some robots, running, climbing, shooting a bit more, resting, shooting, eating, shooting, running, climbing. I was so happy it was almost over. Finally we reached the floor we were supposed to go to. There was a group waiting for us.
When we arrived to the floor, to the other group, there was a lot of discussion, changing of information and planning. I complained about my armor, that wasn't very well-fitting and asked around if anyone had better one to borrow. Someone promised to borrow a jacket, but wanted it back. Like it would be in one piece then.
We were supposed to return several floors down to get some device after hours of rest. I thought about asking what the device did, but decided not to. I would've gotten a long and complicated explanation about how Deus was going to be beaten, but I didn’t think I would've understood it.
The next morning after meeting with the other group I found a note on my sleeping bag. It said something about shooting me and how I was able to heal. I was furious. I stared at it a while. The handwriting seemed familiar. I thought it looked like Random’s doing. I was about to go and ask about the note, not very nicely, from Random when I realized how I would find out the writer for sure. I wasn't dressed very heavily so I undressed and transformed. I smelled the note. It was Random. I noticed one of the new people being a bit startled about my presence. He pointed his gun at me. I would've growled at him, but I had a bone to pick with Random first. I transformed back, dressed up. I thought about taking my sledgehammer with me, but decided otherwise.
I went to Random and yelled at him about notes. I demanded to know why he wrote such stupid things. He said it was a joke, and innocent at that. I was about to beat him senseless, but thought someone would've come and saved him before I had a chance to finish, so I didn’t. I gave him a warning. I told him that if there ever was a next time with the notes, I would let my sledgehammer talk.
We were almost done in the Arcology. I was surprised to be still alive. I was happy that we were almost going to leave. Only the killing of Deus, and then out. I was anxious to get back on the streets of Seattle. They were nothing compared to Arcology. They were like a dream.
I was certain that we would be talked about after Arcology. I just hoped the rumors would leave out the part about me being a shifter. I didn’t want anyone to hunt me because of that. And really, the rumors the streets have about the runners who killed Deus don’t tell about a shifter at all.
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