Chapter 33: An Unexpected Problem

Celia rushes over to her apartment in a hurry, wondering what was going on.

Upon opening the door and seeing Hikaru, he said with an exhausted expression on face, “there you are.”

“What?” Celia asked, taking a moment to catch her breath before walking inside and sitting at the table next to him, “what’s wrong? Why do you think we might be caught?”

Hikaru suspiciously eyes the place around them, checking the windows and the apartment for something before sitting back down and finally explaining the situation.

“Ok, so apparently, during Vitoria’s speech earlier today, there was another thing going on,” he said, “someone ended up uncovering a warehouse filled with materials that were used to build a rocket — not just regular things that anything else can use — but stuff like rocket engines, rocket fuel, heat shields; stuff like that. Now because of that, the DDF are currently patrolling around the city, interrogating every engineer and asking them where they’ve been and what they were doing.”

Celia’s heart dropped.

The Dome Defense Force is here? she thought.

The Dome Defense Force was a section of New Genesis that dealt with preventing the collapse of the dome. The existed so that people couldn’t just go around building projectiles and drones that could exceed the air limit and hit the nano drones down from the sky. Even the hover technology that airships used were heavily modified with built-in restrictions that prevented them from going above a certain altitude.

“Well the good thing is that none of those supplies are actually ours,” Celia said, “we don’t really have a strong alibi though because our real excuse is that we’ve been visiting a space center, which doesn’t sound good, but we can always just lie about what we’ve been doing.”

“Right, but the problem is that we have a metal shipment coming up,” Hikaru points out, “and the DDF has access to the shipment logs of metal exporters because of an incident about a decade ago. Even if we successfully lied about what we’ve been doing, after they finish interrogating all of the engineers in the city, the next thing they’ll check is those logs, and we don’t have a proper excuse for that.”

“...then what should I do?” Celia asked.

“I don’t know,” Hikaru replied, “that’s why I called you here; so we can come up with an excuse together. Our made up story is stronger if the two of us can agree on a single one.”

“Hmm… well the obvious thing we can say is that we’ve been working on commissions from the ProtoTask app,” Celia suggested, “we have the commission logs and the people we’ve worked for as an alibi to back that up. The question now is what we’ve been doing in the 9 hour downtime we use when we go back and forth between the space center and the city.”

“...it’s only 9 hours right?” Hikaru asked after thinking for bit, “and we mostly go early in the morning when no one’s awake and make it back in the evening. We could use the excuse that we use the morning as a break while working a 7 hour night shift for commissions… I mean it’s half true right?”

“It’s definitely better than nothing,” Celia agreed, “we should definitely avoid getting too specific with the details because they’ll suspect that we’ve spent the time to think up an excuse which is something a suspicious person would do. There’s also the fact that since we ride the airship out of the city, the only times we’re inside the city is when we’re sleeping or working, so there’s no way we could’ve put the materials in the warehouse. Whatever excuse we come up with, it’ll definitely be better than whoever’s actually at fault for this.”

Hikaru nodded in agreement.

“Speaking of which, I wonder who’s actually behind all of this…” Celia wondered, “I know stuff like this happens every few months, but to think someone else was doing all of this in such a close proximity to us while we’re doing an entirely separate rocket launch is wild to me.”

“Right? Like isn’t our  turn to be put on the news for attempting to launch a rocket?” Hikaru says half jokingly, “whatever it is, we just have to stay down low for now while they catch the real culprits. Since stuff like this only happens a few times a year, they won’t expect another dome violation so soon, and much less in the same city. We can use that time to build our rocket in peace.”

“That’s a good point, but remember that we’re not in the clear just yet, we still need to come up with an excuse for the metal shipment,” she reminds him.

“Right…” he mumbles, “if they don’t catch the real culprits by the time they finish interrogating everyone, they’re going to check the logs next, and we’re going to be a high priority on the list of suspects once they see our metal shipment. This time though, we don’t have an excuse, since what we’re actually doing with it is building a rocket.”

The two of them sit there in silence, trying to come up with an idea.

“Well there’s always just waiting to see what would happen,” Celia said, “there’s the possibility that they could catch the real culprits behind the rocket parts during the interrogation phase, and wouldn’t have to check the shipment logs after that.”

“That’s unlikely,” Hikaru says, “apparently the stash they found in the warehouse was not just a small stash. It's a pretty large stash that was seemingly built up upon weeks of hiding it — which unfortunately just so matches the time we’ve been here in Gran Andes. The fact that they’ve been hiding it so well for so long means that they must’ve put some thought into it, and are most likely to pass the interrogation phase as well. We’re definitely screwed unless we come up with a good excuse for this… what we need to do is to pretend that we’re using the metal for another large project.”

Celia thinks for a moment.

Another large project…?  she pondered, but we don’t have anything else built that needs this much metal. We need someone to vouch for us and say that they hired us to build something for them, but then we’d need a reason for them to help us. They’d also have to be perfectly fine with what we’re trying to hide… we could try bribery but we don’t have enough money for something like that… we need someone that already has a good opinion of us… someone like… Vitoria…

Celia pauses and then smacks her head.

No, no, no, what am I thinking? She works with New Genesis, who’s clearly our biggest opposition, there’s no way she’d agree, Celia yells at herself inside her mind, but then again, she does want to do a controlled collapse of the dome… our ideas practically align, and the only thing that separates us is the two sides we’re on. We could also try to find the actual culprits first and convince them to let us join their team, but that would be like finding a needle in a haystack, and there’s no guarantee that they won’t betray us…

As Celia brainstorms her ideas and tries to reason with herself, Hikaru watches her inner turmoil with curiosity.

“What are you thinking?” he asks.

Celia paused before looking up at him and shaking her head.

“It’s… nothing,” she reassured him. “It's a bad idea that’s for sure. I wouldn’t want to resort to it.”

“Well I’ve got nothing either,” Hikaru says, “it’s only a matter of time before we start getting interrogated so I’m willing to accept anything at this point.”

Celia purses her lips. He was right; they didn’t have much time to think this over, and any idea was better than no idea. It was going to be risky, but they’ve taken a lot of risks up until this point anyway. Their only options were to either sit out in the open like ducks hoping that they won’t be shot by a hunter, or walk inside the mouth of a sleeping lion hoping that they don't bite down on them, and at the moment, the latter option seemed better to the both of them.

“So…” Celia says in a suddenly casual tone, “you won’t believe this, but I may have gotten another internship offer…”

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“I know I said that I’m willing to accept anything, but this is outrageous,” Hikaru says as they take the elevator up to Vitoria’s apartment, “we’re walking straight into enemy territory, and hoping that they don’t turn us in.”

“I know that,” Celia said, “which is why I really didn’t want to have to resort to this, but I have a feeling that she might listen to us.”

“Might?” he asked, “and why do you think that?”

“Because she’s been advocating for a controlled collapse of the dome,” she explained, “launching a rocket under her supervision just might be something she’s willing to accept as long as she’s there to manage it. After the conversation I had with her earlier today, I realized that she’s similar to the both of us in that she’s willing to break the law and bend the rules a little bit to prove a point — and she definitely has a point that she really wants to prove to the world. Besides, if you don’t have any other ideas, then this is the one we’re resorting to.”

Hikaru sighed and said, “fine, but we’re running out the door as soon as she starts acting hostile.”

The two of them make their way to Vitoria’s door and Celia rings the doorbell. A few moments later Vitoria appears in front of the doorway in a more casual attire from before; wearing a pair of black flared pants and a black-and-red, floral-patterned, medium-sleeved, stylish crop top.

“Oh hey Celia,” she said, “didn’t expect to see you so soon… and it looks like you brought a friend along with you. Are you here to accept the internship offer or are you do you need something else?

“Well…” Celia sheepishly said as Hikaru waved to Vitoria, “a bit of both? You see, there’s this thing with the rocket parts that were recently uncovered at the warehouse today…”