The Ogdoad Raid ( Part 4)- Finale

Angie couldn't run anymore, but she was still smashing bits and pieces of shrapnel, leaving the Captain in a position where he had to rethink his plan. So, he gathered whatever parts he had left around his left arm and formed a spear with them, with his aim being her torso.

-“ One last run,”  he thought, then charged at her at the maximum speed his equipment would allow him. After gaining more and more ground, he knew she missed her chance of dodging, but soon found out why. Instead of evading him, she used both of her hands to diminish the impact, which shattered both the spear and her fingers and palms. But then she gave him a victorious smile- he couldn’t stop and was close to bumping into her: “I lost the head, but the rest of the spear should still harm her”, he believed when something entered each side of his chest, closing in on the ribs.

The back shield activated and surrounded Angie, from the top of her back, around her shoulders and chest, but then stopped into the Captain. He oozed blood, oil, and other substances, which were enough to render him immobilized.

After a grueling fight, Angie won against the security forces and roared to the sky to make certain that everyone knew it. And saw it.

Suddenly, the security system came back online, with all the measures activating one by one, but they weren’t aimed at Vivar and the rest, but Marc's family. Syna gained control over the facility.

The boy woke up right as his father was charging Angie, and it took him a few moments to regain his senses. His sight was blurry, and his ears were still ringing, but he regained most just in time to catch the moment of the Captain’s defeat. “ No!!”, he screamed out in despair, but quickly thought that there might still be a chance, something, to win this.

A security camera turned and threatened him to stay down. And with that, he finally accepted, that they failed the mission. Desperately, he looked around and noticed that the third drone was still on its knees and, like a maniac, used all the tools at his disposition to search the area;

-” Mother, take a shot at the following coordinates”, he said through a text message.

She did as he requested and shot Sovereign in the left shoulder. It wasn’t enough to harm them, but it severed the connection to the drone, which now reactivated itself. Marc and it gunned directly towards Angie and his father, which forced the girl to release her grip on the Captain. Angie jumped backward to evade a punch, while Marc grabbed the injured man and threw him towards the drone, and then jumped on himself. With both on board, the machine released multi-colored smoke and used it to disappear from the valley.

Right before their escape, Angie and Marc shared glances between them, one determined to fight again if it was necessary, while the other had a burning fire in them, but more contained than before.

Siranis sent a message that Mother disappeared as well and asked if they should give chase, but after assessing their status, all of the C.T.Ds declined. They had won, but not unscathed.

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The group gathered inside the control room, battered and with more holes than they started, but nobody would have been able to tell by how content and excited they seemed. Whatever the plan was, it went without major hitches, especially since they all escaped with their lives intact.

Priya was sleeping on the ground, still recovering from her healing equipment over usage. “ Get up princess”, said Priya while gently kicking her. “ It’s time for the grand moment.” While still tired beyond belief, she still requested to be woken when they managed to get a connection with the County. She lifted herself, then grabbed on the miner’s shoulder, trying to cling on to Angie for leg support.

Siranis, observing the lack of chairs in the room, decided to relax on the ground, while Savan sat in Vicar's left hand, while the knight sat back to back with Billy and Sovereign. Syna, after doing a mental presence check, asked them- “ Ready?”

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-” For how many decades has she been planning this?” asked an exasperated Zude who was shifting between files after files, looking over all the documentation they gathered from Priya’s servers, computers, connections, online presence etc. All the CEOs would have preferred to leave the work to someone else, but they didn’t know what kind of gathered info could have damaged them personally.

-” Tsz, it’s something I would have done, to be fair”, commented Robert. “ Considering that all our activities can be easily checked now, she simply hid the right cables in a sea of tangled ones.”

-” Shut it with the metaphors you two and comb for the fucking wires faster. The Captain already reported that they attacked the station minutes ago!”, shouted an impatient Samuel. He was so irritated, that he could even ignore the stink eyes of Robert and Alvara, who were trying to remind him that he was the first to agree with her transfer.

The next interruption almost made him erupt, but he swallowed his words when he read the message: “ Connection to the Playground has been lost!”

All of them received the same one, and then their screens became static- Most of the commercial ones became the same- and the workers quickly found out that they could check out a special channel created recently.

Either by choice or not, by the second it happened, everyone had seen the single message they received from the Playground- Of eight figures standing, in a meadow, speaking with them directly. Four C.T.Ds and four enhanced people, many of them recognized by the citizens as the presumed dead participants in the canceled R.O.C.

At first they thought they should let Priya do the honors, but she pointed out how it wasn’t a good image to let a former CEO be their spokesperson. They finally decided that it should be either Savan and Vivar or Angie and Savan, but the miner refused. “ I would do it, but I’m out of hands with which to greet them. It would be a bit rude, don’t you think?”

Savan started to blush for a bit and tried a vertical method to garner courage. Vivar noticed it, and just gave them a little tap on their back, and a nod. No more words were needed afterward.

-” Citizens of the City!” started the clopy. For the first time in their life, it was their turn to give a speech, and they drew inspiration from all the previous ones they heard. The first thing they learned, though, was to try not to get tangled in their words.

-” We are alive and well…and in control of the Playground. As proof of this, we have attached tons of footage and data of our fight with the Security Force…and our victory. Anyone can check it and see that it’s not altered, faked, or some other trickery.”

Vivar then was given stage and started to speak about his and the rest of the C.T.Ds's situation, and how they had a method of giving them freedom. One by one,  they spoke about their grievances, short stories and explanations of why they did what they did. Even Priya had the chance to denounce her role as a CEO and the way the Brands work. After which she left the clopy end their message:

-” I hope you understand now why we did what we did. We won’t claim that our solution is the perfect one, but just that, in the end, this is an invitation to anyone from the County. You can live here, in the Playground! And we want to let out one message to the Brands- Negotiations are still on the table, and secure roads between the two places can still be established. As well as transport methods between our two settlements!”

Savan sounded quite confident, even if their friends could see their hands and knees trembling like crazy under the hidden frames. They chuckled a bit at their “fearless” guide but tried to hide it from the screens.

-” For anyone that feels overworked, underappreciated, or just simply doesn’t know what to do…neither do we. This is a solution we are working on, so like anything else, it might feel like it has a high chance of failing. We just ask you to give it a chance, and we want to ask you to work with us on lowering that chance to the most infirm value possible.”

The recording went on for another few minutes, with them describing further plans, ways to get to the Playground, and other information.

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By the second day when the message spread, almost two percent of the City’s population left its walls and roofs entirely. And in the future, they wouldn’t have the last ones.

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Savan went next to Vivar’s kneed-up foot, put their backs to it, and slide to the ground in a sitting position. They looked into the distance and stared at the fields in front of them, the forests beyond, and, for the first time, at the dome above them.

The knight then asked them- “ How does it look to you?”

-” Warped, almost upside down, in inverted colors. I kinda like it. You?”

-” Home, for now.”