[Northwestern Columbia Central Research Hub: March 34, 2079]

“Damn it! Why is there nothing here!?”

A brown-haired soldier swore and turned around to kick a large steel door that came loose and fell down with a loud clang that echoed in the empty building. “FUCK!” A few seconds later, a small beep, barely audible, rang out from his waist and he stormed out of the warehouse. Walking into the freezing winds outside, he took a small device out from his belt, speaking harshly into it with an annoyed expression.

“What the fuck’s the matter now Matthew? It’d better be something good.”

The radio beeped again and the soldier held it up close to his ear so the sound wouldn't be drowned out by the whistling of the wind. A small, staticky voice came faintly from the old-fashioned device.

“We fou*d on* of the res*archers o*er h*re, got’em be**re he ate o*e of th**e blue p*lls, the rest have alr*edy kil*ed the**lves th*ugh.”

Robert scowled before lifting the radio back to his mouth.

“I’m heading there right now, you better make sure he doesn’t fucking kill himself too.”

He shoved the radio back onto his belt before heading over towards the towering dome that served as the command center of the base.

On the way, he saw several groups of ragtag soldiers doing the same thing he just did, going into buildings and storages, and coming out empty-handed and with darkened expressions. He gripped his gun tighter and the frown on his face deepened. Recently, all of the Federation bases they had raided were completely empty, not even basic necessities were to be found. It had both mystified and frustrated them to no end.

‘Another day of being hungry,’ he thought with a heavy heart before realizing something and taking out his radio to send another message.

“Keep him in there! Don’t take him out or the guys here are going to murder him!”

This was one of the few times that they managed to get one of those Feds alive, ‘I’ll be fucking damned if someone kills him first.’ Everyone was dead tired, and the number of soldiers that died today wasn't few. Being frustrated at not getting any sort of compensation or reward, not even food, the Coalition soldiers would undoubtedly be looking for an outlet to vent. If they saw one of 「them」the only thing left would be a sorry excuse for a corpse. And as much as Robert wanted to strangle that person as well, it would have to wait until after he finished his ...questioning.

***

Sprinting towards the rest of his squad along the main road, Robert had to admit, Federation bases really were something special. Each base was a perfect circle, with 4 main roads on each side leading straight to the command center and meeting in the middle. Everything was perfectly organized, a far step from the messy underground bunkers that he’d spent most of his time in, with the confusing corridors and random rooms everywhere.

If Coalition bunkers were like ant colonies, with dirtied workers scurrying around everywhere, Federation bases were like beehives, everything packed together, but with an organized feel to it and everything in its predetermined place. Although it made managing them much easier after they won and took over, it’s damn fucking hard running down a perfectly straight road with snipers trying to riddle you full of holes.

Perfectly symmetrical buildings filled the left and right sides of the main road, with secondary roads that curved around to one of the other 3 main roads in intervals. After a minute of straight sprinting, he finally reached the once shining steel doors, now full of dents and marred with blast marks. Behind him, the well maintained roads were already beginning to pile up with snow and ice. Once inside though, he choked and grabbed his nose as the stench of burning flesh hit him full on in the face. He took one look at the soldiers assigned to cleaning up the bodies, shuddered slightly, and headed up to the second floor. ‘

Goddamned maniacs.’

No matter how many times he saw it, he never quite got used to the sight of the Federation’s policy of death over imprisonment. All of the ‘normal’ Feds were outside of the base, the only ones who were granted entry in here were those crazy psychos that spouted nonsense about saving Humanity and shit, people who would kill themselves in an instant if their deaths meant contributing to their ‘salvation’ of mankind. And each one of them had a small, blue pill, which he heard would kill within the minute it was taken.

‘Fucking lunatics.’

He thought about those words a lot, but to be fair, those people really were fucking batshit insane.

After climbing up a flight of stairs, the elevators were broken obviously, he saw Chris standing outside of a door, taking a hand off his gun before waving to him.

“No one dead this time boss! Me and Matthew got a few scratches, but nothing major or life-threatening. He and Emmy are watching over the guy inside, tied him to a chair. We also gagged him, so he couldn’t bite his tongue.”

Chris gave his signature grin and gestured to the door.

Originally, there were four people in his squad, Chris, himself, and the two people inside, Matthew and Emily. Chris, the scout, was the type of person who constantly made jokes, the opposite of himself, the squad leader. Emily was the ‘technician’ of the group, she could break through the electronic locks on Federalist computers faster than most of their own guys could. She also was his younger sister. Matthew, a rather plump fellow, served as their group’s makeshift medic. That originally was their small, four person squad. The Sergeant in charge was shot in the head by a sniper though, and as the squad leader that had been with the Coalition the longest, it was decided for him to temporarily take his place until the mission was over.

On the outside, he kept on a stern face, but inwardly he sighed in relief that no one was injured before giving a Chris a nod and pushing open the door. Combined with the person they’d captured, today wasn’t a bad day, compared to some of the other groups at least. ‘If only we’d gotten some food too.’ The thought passed through his head before he quickly dismissed it. It never was a good thing to expect for too much.

Once inside the room he almost sneezed as he saw something very quickly.

Books.

Many, many books, on shelves covering the walls and desks and some even on the floor. Books were damn rare nowadays, many people had already burned their books for heating. Rare, but not valuable. Even in the Federation it wasn't common for a person to have a book, let alone so many of them since nearly all of their information was stored electronically. His eyes quickly scanned over them before gazing at the chair in the middle of the room, to the person who owned all of these books. To the left and right of the chair were Matthew and Emily, both fully armed to the teeth.

Emily walked up to him and murmured softly in his ear, still keeping her gun trained at the captive’s head.

“We found this guy just now while we were searching the rooms. Only one who’s still alive, the rest are dead and being cleaned up down there. Seemed like he was reading something and didn’t even realize the base was under attack until we barged in his room. We already took the pill and tossed it away boss, so there’s nothing to worry about.”

She brushed a strand of brown hair off to the side of her head and sighed tiredly. Before, when she and Robert were fleeing together and joined the Coalition, she was only 17. Even though only 3 years had passed since then, she now looked like she was in her mid-twenties. The person standing in front of him was no longer the cheery girl that liked shopping and eating ice cream. Robert closed his eyes, wishing that she didn't have to grow so fast, before sighing as well and gesturing to the both of them.

“You can both head back to the truck now, I’ll be here …talking to this guy for a bit. Oh, and take Chris back with you guys too.”

Although he trusted his squad with his life and they trusted theirs with him, code practice still dictated that all information regarding Paragon was sensitive and should only be known to those who needed it. Thus, he could only see them off while they headed back to the army truck while he had to stay here. In this dusty room.

Talking to a crazy person.

A while after they left his sight, he turned back to the person tied to the chair behind him and squatted down until he was at eye level and looked over him once. Even at a first glance, they didn't seem like normal people. In the Federation, they were like core scientists and engineers. They all each had some ridiculously long title, but most people in the Coalition didn’t bother and just called them the ‘Researchers,’ which they basically all were anyway.

They also all looked very similar. Perhaps it was because of a drug, or some kind of genetic modification, but every single one of them had the same figure, slim, with smooth skin and a pair of azure eyes. Really the opposite of what you'd expect a scientist to look like. Their looks wouldn’t lose out to a celebrity or a model from the era before, and in a time where looks practically decided first impressions, they would’ve definitely been popular. Now however, when people were starving everywhere and no one had time to look nice, they only looked alien and unnatural.

Milky brown eyes met sharp cerulean eyes for a bit, but the stare was soon broken off by a prodding assault rifle.

“Yo. What's your name?”

He pulled out the small folded cloth from the person’s mouth before tossing it in a what he assumed was a trash can.

There was no point in torturing a Researcher to talk. They were so paranoid against information leaks that besides the blue pills, in order to prevent captured prisoners from giving away secrets, every one of them installed a chip at the base of their skull. If the amount of pain experienced during an interrogation session went over a certain threshold, the chip went off, just like a circuit breaker, and severed the nerves between the brain and the spine. It was also permanent, and even just trying to remove it would cause death as if it went off.

‘Just another tribute to how fucking mental these guys are.’

The Federation also tried to implement chips that could be remotely set off, but after a Coalition hacker wiped out an entire side branch, the idea was scrapped and they stopped producing those. Besides, as long as the researchers didn't reveal information, they were of very little use to the Coalition. With their personalities, they would probably rather murder a child before betraying their goal of ‘salvation.’

So, in the end, the only option was to manipulate them and try pry out some information that might be somewhat useful, rather than their nonsense. He poked the person in the chair with his gun again.

“I can't keep saying, ‘hey you,’ what's your name?” The person waited a bit.

One second, two seconds, three seconds, before finally answering.

“...my name is Alex,” he said quietly. If not for the fact that Robert was right in front of him, there was no way he would've heard the faint whisper. ‘Seems like he's one of the more sane ones.’ Although he wouldn't have to deal with lectures about saving mankind, it would be a lot harder to get any information from him. Also probably would be hard to trick. In that case,

“Hey, what do you do here?” This was about as direct as a question could be.

“......” Obviously, Alex didn't respond, so,

“Maaaan, these really are some nice books, but it's pretty cold in here, y’know?” Saying as such, he took out a small lighter from his pocket and a flickering flame sparked into existence.

“.......this is a research facility.”

‘No shit Sherlock, what else would it be?’ He didn't say that though, and instead took one of the more important looking books and ripped out a page. He saw that it was full of incomprehensible numbers and symbols in the split second before it went up in flames.

“So this is just a regular facility then? Then these books shouldn't be that important,” as he slowly ripped out another page and watched it also disappear from existence. When Alex wasn't showing any signs of responding, he reached to grab another page, but,

“.......thruster propulsion.”

“Hm? What was that? I didn't quite seem to catch all of that,” Robert said as he secretly reached in his vest pocket and turned on an old recording machine, pretending to put away his lighter. If it was important, it'd be best if it was recorded or his superiors would give him hell.

“...this is a facility for designing and manufacturing ion type propulsives,” Alex repeated it flatly, without a change in his expression, not even a single twitch as he revealed the base's secret.

‘Guess those books were more important than I thought.’

Robert inwardly praised himself for his book guessing skills. He had no idea what an ion propulsive was, but nevertheless, he continued to press Alex for information.

“So what was your job? Engineering, designing, or whatever?” Even among Researchers there were separate rankings. If he was in one of the higher ranks, he'd naturally have more information.

“...do you mind putting down the book first?”

Now that Alex decided to ‘negotiate,’ everything became much, much easier. After all, in their positions, Robert had nothing he could possibly lose. He chuckled softly before setting the book back onto the desk, two of it’s pages gone burned away for eternity. Robert looked backed to Alex and raised an eyebrow, as if saying Well? Come on.

The person in front closed his eyes and sighed, the first real reaction he'd gotten since Robert entered the room. He opened his eyes and the glint of determination in his eyes earlier now seemed a bit duller.

“I research different thruster types and improve them to make them more efficient. That is the one and only thing that I do here.”

Robert creased his brow, perplexed. ‘Thrusters? None of Federation machines use thrusters. Perhaps it’s for a new type of vehicle?’

There were a few reasons why the Coalition had been able to stand up to them despite the mechanical vehicles and technology of the Federation. The first being numbers. Since the Federation only allowed people who were useful into their bases, many people wound up having to join the Coalition in order to survive. Another reason was that the territory the Coalition encompassed was much greater than their counterpart. Federation research centers required a tremendous amount of time and resources to create and manage, while basic bunkers could simply be created in a few days. The last reason was mobility. The jeeps and motorcycles that the Coalition had could be deployed much faster than the tanks of the Federation. It was because of all these factors that allowed them to stand on equal ground and even slightly tilted the war in their favor despite having massively outdated armaments.

Every advantage they had was absolutely necessary to keep the upper hand against the Federation. Robert didn’t know much about vehicles and engines, but anything with a thruster strapped to it would undoubtedly be faster than anything the Coalition currently had. If that happened, it was quite possible that the Coalition would lose their speed advantage and begin to start losing in the war.

Trying to hide his anxiousness, he feigned indifference as he inquired, “Oh? I didn’t see anything that looked like thrusters here so far, have you not built any yet?”

But then,

Alex tilted his head up to look at him and revealed a small, satisfied smile, “No. All the parts have already been finished and transported away a while ago, now we’re just waiting on orders for our next project.”

Robert’s heart sank to the bottom of the ocean, and the somewhat pleased mood he had from earlier had all but vanished and turned into gloominess, though he tried not to show it. Masking his anxiety, he continued to casually ask more questions. ‘Answers. We need answers.’

“How come there wasn’t anything else in the warehouses, no food, no water, no ammunition, just nothing? How are you people surviving? It can’t be that you decided to abandon this base?”

Alex’s smile disappeared as quickly as it came, and was replaced with a frown that showed his unwillingness to answer. He bit his lip though after Robert took out his lighter again. The lighter fluid was pretty expensive, but he didn’t think anyone would complain at his usage of it right now.

His face darkened, Alex averted his eyes and answered unhappily, “It’s because of you guys. Bases don’t store any of those things anymore. Higher-ups decided we should receive smaller daily shipments. If a vehicle doesn’t return from a base, and the center doesn’t respond to contact calls, it’s marked out and won’t receive any more supplies.”

‘Doesn’t seem like he's lying, but there’s still something that doesn’t make sense.’

“How come we haven’t seen any of these shipments then?”

“There’s no point in looking for them. Supplies are delivered by camouflaged ground drones. Besides, they’re sent over the course of a day, not all at once, so even if you do manage to find one, the rest will just take different routes.”

‘This is something pretty important.’ For the past week, Coalition supplies had been running low. Now that they knew the reason why, the problem would be solved. Not that Robert had any idea how they would solve it, but he'd leave that up to the people in charge.

“Alright, thank you for your cooperation. If you don't mind me, I'll be leaving first.”

Robert beamed a ‘confident’ smile, gave a small bow, and walked right out the door without looking back.

He could deal with that guy later. For now, it was important to get the message back to HQ. The faster he passed on the message, the faster he could be rid of this nagging worry in his chest. He walked passed a few rooms before choosing an inconspicuous one at random to enter. After making sure no one was around, he shut the door behind him and opened up his bag. Inside was small comm unit that was salvaged from the body of the dead sergeant. It was basically just a cellphone. Not that impressive, but it was damn useful at times like this. After punching a few buttons on the disk-shaped device, he sat down, hoped that the signal would be received amidst the ongoing blizzard and waited for a response.

A quarter of an hour later, he walked back out of the room after delivering the news, feeling pissed. He spent a whole ten minutes explaining how they'd taken over the base and the information he’d gotten from Alex.

And the only thing he got back? Orders to attack another base. As for their shortage of rations? ‘Figure it out.’ They'd said. Not only that, they also had to bring along that Researcher too. Robert could already imagine the headache he'd get from all the glares. He left the room, fuming, and headed back to the room where Alex.

‘Goddamned lazy motherfuckers. Fucking sitting in a truck while we starve to death.’

He stormed his way back to the room while shoving the comm unit away in his bag, not caring if it got damaged.

“Oi Alex! You're fucking coming with-” He stopped in shock. “!!!!”

The chair in the middle of the room was empty, a pile of sawed ropes laying quietly on the floor.