24

Time moved fast. One instant Aiden felt he was falling asleep, and now he was wide awake on his bed with his alarm ringing beside him. The day had not arrived yet, and it was still dark outside. Aiden got up, and after appropriate cleaning and dressing procedures, walked downstairs. There he saw that his equipment had been prepared for him, and a few of the HLF crew who worked on the mission plan. Aiden took the thermal suite and wore it over his shirt and shorts. Then he took the rest of his equipment, checked that he had everything, and was out of the door. His crew followed him into the sewers’ underground community, but left him at the community’s end and wished him good luck.

Aiden was then alone. He walked through the sewers, accompanied only by his flashlight, and the sound of the streaming water as well as his own footsteps. Eventually, he arrived at the checkpoint into the light zone, and the two guards there snapped him a salute this time. He stood straight and returned the salute, and then continued. When he was out on the surface in Grand Central Terminal, he exited the building via its main gate and was happy to find the mag-mobile that the HLF left him. He stepped in and told it to go to Bureogis headquarters. As he approached the campus and saw the large gates, he could not help but feel excitement and nervousness. This was it, it was now all on him. All that he and his brother did for the past few days would either materialize or be wiped away depending on if his current mission was successful. Aiden felt the pressure, but he wasn’t going to break now.

The vehicle stopped outside of the main gate, and Aiden exited it. The vehicle then moved away to a spot across the street. Aiden walked towards the front gate and showed his identification. His blood level rose when his card was scanned, but the machined lighted green, and the guard let him pass. Aiden then moved towards The Traveler’s building with swiftness but also took the time to appreciate the exotic plants in the campus garden once again, for what he thought was truly the final time. In front of The Engineer’s building, he was stopped again and his identification card scanned. The guard told Aiden to take off his helmet and to show his face, which Aiden did. Aiden was scared that the guard might recognize him from the arrest order shown on the streets a few days ago, but the guard decided to let him pass without even really taking a look at his face.

Once inside the building, he quickly went to the public bathroom in the lobby and placed his helmet back on again. He activated his HUD and started the mapping course. Arrows and paths started popping up on his HUD, and he could see the air vent system through the walls. Once inside the bathroom, he walked to the third cubical on his right, locked the door, stepped onto the toilet, took out his screwdriver, and removed the air vent cover on the wall, placing it quietly on the toilet cap under his feet. Then he entered the air vents and turned on his night vision.

For the next two hours, Aiden crawled through the air vents. As he reached lower and lower levels he found more and more passages to be devoted to steam from the nuclear reactors, and even the ambient temperature around him rose significantly. Aiden was now drenched in sweat all over, his hair was practically wet, but worst of all, he was sealed in his thermal suite which made the sweating ten times worse. However, Aiden knew that his suit was the only thing keeping him alive right now. He had climbed through metal vents which had been scorched by steam as recent as only a few minutes ago, and the suite was the only reason that his arms and legs were not completely fired by the hot metal. In addition, he had also maneuvered himself through vents filled with “cooled” steam of hundreds of degrees and was surprised that his suit kept him alive even as his HUD turned blank for a few minutes as the electronics inside reconfigured.

Now he was in front of his greatest challenge. There was a turn below him where he must enter, and climb right after ten meters to enter another turn. The vent was filled with highly pressurized steam straight from the reactors of thousands of degrees most of the time, but there was a seven-second window ever twenty seconds where the steam would stop to let the vent temporarily cool down so as to avoid the vent melting. Aiden prepared himself and positioned himself for the dropdown. He watched the thermal sensor on his HUD intently and dropped down the vent as soon as the temperature dropped below five hundred degrees to give himself the maximum time possible. The drop itself was two meters in height and Aiden was a bit winded when he landed, but he knew that he must move fast to survive and crawled furiously.

He reached his turn in time and turned right, however, exactly one and a half meters in front of him was another air vent cover. The cover was probably placed to protect the rest of the vents from the intense heat of the vent he just went through. The cover did not show up on the schematics and thus was probably added later after the initial design. When Aiden saw the cover, he grabbed his screwdriver and started dismantling the cover. However, before he even got started he felt hot steam behind him. The entire space pressurized quickly and Aiden’s suite was pushed close to his body. Then he felt a sharp pain over his back which was exposed to the heated steam coming from the main vent taking a turn to the minor vent. Aiden screamed in pain as he felt that his entire back was literally being peeled away from him. For a short second, he found his head leaning to the side of one of the walls having passed out shortly.

Aiden tried to focus on turning the screws through the pain, but the plastic handle of the screwdriver, now no longer protected by the thermal suit’s pockets, melted in his hands. Aiden was desperate but remembered that he still had a sidearm. However, if he took the pistol out now it would certainly melt as the screwdriver did. Aiden knew that he had to wait, and continued to use his back as protection against the heated steam. Twenty seconds passed and Aiden truly realized what it is meant when it is said that time is relative, for the twenty seconds felt to him like an eternity. Aiden felt that his back must have been steamed well done, and was surprised that he was even alive and not dead. He took out his pistol quickly as soon as the temperature dropped below three hundred degrees, giving him only a four-second window. He took four quick shots at the corners of the cover and forced it open after smashing himself into it twice. He then quickly climbed through and returned the cover to its original position, just in time as more pressured steam came through and almost scorched his hands. Aiden could see the rubber on his gloves slightly melting and was terrified to imagine the damage done to his back.

Once he was a relatively safe distance from the cover, he opened suite status on his HUD and was surprised to discover that his suite was still sealed and intact, although his back has taken significant damage. Aiden was shortly relieved as he felt another wave of pain on his back as concluded that he probably received a first-degree burn which hurt like hell, but certainly wasn’t lethal. He needed to worry more if he didn’t feel any pain. Finishing the thought, Aiden pressed on through the vent and was finally near the cover of the terminal room. With a deep breath, Aiden leaned back and kicked the cover open, and dropped onto the feeling from a space one and a half meter above the ground on the wall. He dashed to the terminal, entered the commands that his brother preconfigured and was showing on his HUD. As the terminal showed that it was prepared to receive information Aiden plugged in the information stick and heard sirens sound around him. He heard guards at the door and pulled out the information stick as the upload was completed in less than a second. He leaped into the air vent with the help of a short sprint from the other side of the room as he heard the door open and the voices of guards shouting. He began crawling with all his strength and was somewhat relieved when he heard the sound of the guards disappear behind him. After around half an hour of crawling, Aiden finally reached his exit point and planted the charges that he had been carrying in a deep pocket in the thermal suite. Crawled back to the previous turn five meters away, and detonated the charges on his HUD.

There was a loud explosion and when Aiden turned to the vent again the light from the surface blinded his night vision. He turned off the HUD and climbed out of the hole. As Aiden ripped open his thermal suite steam practically came out of it a puddle of sweat was left where he kicked the suit off himself. Aiden looked around, saw the main gate around two hundred and fifty meters away, and sprinted for it. Although there was no one in the central garden right now as all guards and employees were called into the buildings during the lockdown, Aiden was sure that the situation is rapidly changing as the security camera spotted explosion that he made. He didn’t want to wait and find out if the guards had orders to simply kill him or to arrest him and make him suffer worse. When Aiden reached the door, he cursed to himself and remembered that the override card was in the suite which he kicked off. He sprinted back to the location of the suit again and reached into the pocket holding the card. However, it took some time as the suit drenched in sweat was already half frozen under the cold winter morning. When Aiden turned to run again he could see that many guards in combat armor were already exiting from all three of the buildings, coming at him. Aiden ran as fast as he could and heard bullets fly past him.

He reached the door scanned the override, and prayed to whoever was out there that it worked. After five long seconds, the gates slowly opened and Aiden squeezed himself though and hurried towards his parked mag-mobile. He entered the vehicle and cursed again as he saw many of the guards themselves arriving right after him and entering mag-mobiles of themselves. Aiden quickly initiated navigation and the mag-mobile started towards the terminal station. It was noon and there was no traffic on the road, which meant that Aiden would be able to reach his destination shortly. However, Aiden soon heard the sound of engines above him and realized that sever sky-mobiles are hovering over him. He looked out of the window and saw that the military-grade mag-mobiles of the Bureogis corporation were now close behind him. He realized if he allows his enemies to get in front of him they can slowly block his path and even slow him down to a stop. In addition, the fact that they were not shooting meant that CEO Pros had something worse than death in mind for Aiden if he was to be caught. Aiden was desperate and thus made a desperate play. He turned his mag mobile to manual operations and after several warning from the computer, he assumed manual control over a physical steering wheel which popped out from the front of the car. He then positioned himself and braced for impact as he got out the EMP charge which was stored in the pockets of his shorts, and pressed the red button.

The reaction was immediate as Aiden’s mag-mobile dipped and slid across the road as the powerful electromagnet which kept the vehicle afloat failed. However, because Aiden was in manual control the car slid straight and to a stop around fifty meters away from where it impacted the ground, leaving a long line of cuts on the road before it. Aiden’s adversaries, however, weren’t so lucky. They automatic navigational lock on Aiden’s mag-mobile, and as soon as the EMP hit their navigation AIs failed and they all either crashed into each other or to the buildings on the side of the road. The sky-mobiles above Aiden simply fell, hit the ground, and exploded in spectacular fashion. Aiden, however, did not have time to enjoy the scene, but instead got out of his vehicle a bit disoriented, and ran towards his location. He didn’t look back, but if he did, he would see that he wasn’t being followed, as to ensure maximum maneuverability inside of their own vehicles during the chase, none of the guards in the Bureogis vehicles wore their seatbelts.

Aiden reached the metro terminal after seven minutes and was panting heavily. He looked back, saw no one, and thought that he perhaps lost the guards. However, he could not be sure and used his last bit of strength to run to the sewer entrance. As Aiden entered and closed the sewer hatch, he lost his footing and almost fell down the ladders leading down to the large swage passage but instead grabbed the ladder at the last second and felt that his arm was being ripped off by the momentum. Aiden reached the bottom of the ladders and looked into the darkness. He felt the wall by his side and sat down. His lungs were on fire, his stomach aches, he wanted to puke, and his back was burnt. However, Aiden was alive, and that is all which mattered. He sat down on the floor and rested there for a while. How long he didn’t know and didn’t care. He just needed his body to rest, and recover a bit before he could move.

After a while, Aiden got up and realized that he has left his flashlight in the little “car” chase. Aiden used the wall to guide himself so as to not step to the stream of filth which flowed two meters on his right. His legs yearned for rest from the burn in the vents and the run which he took, but he kept walking on. He kept walking on, even as his drenched shirt froze under the cold underground temperature and bit into the blisters on his back. During the chase, his body pumped him full of adrenaline and Aiden did not experience the full extents of his injuries through the vents, however, now he was feeling them in their full wrath. Finally, just as Aiden felt that he was never going to make it, he saw two distant points of light away in front of him which gave him the final boost of strength he needed. He walked towards the light, and when he was around fifty meters away, it became clear to the HLF guards that Aiden needed help. The two points of light dashed towards Aiden. As soon as the first guard reached him, Aiden collapsed into his arms and passed out.