[25] Stronghold

Staff Sergeant Elias Voss didn't look back.

The motorcycle carried him away from the narrow service lane with barely more than a rising electric whine, slipping between abandoned cars before accelerating onto the wider road beyond.

The two teenagers disappeared behind him soon enough.

Probably for the best.

The boy had been watching him far too closely by the end.

Voss leaned forward slightly as the road opened ahead, allowing the bike to gather speed. There was considerably less weight on it now, and the difference was immediate. The machine responded almost too eagerly, its smooth acceleration pressing him backwards before settling into something that felt effortless.

...Interesting. He pushed it a little harder.

The numbers climbing across the display suggested there was still plenty left.

Several minutes later, the dense rows of buildings began thinning out. Commercial blocks gave way to older industrial lots, then warehouses built into the gradual rise of the surrounding terrain. Most had been abandoned even before the outbreak. Now, with weeds growing through cracked roads and delivery yards left empty, there was little reason for anyone to wander this far uphill.

Voss slowed.

Ahead, an old warehouse sat against the slope.

Its corrugated exterior had faded almost completely grey. Several upper windows were broken, one loading shutter hung crookedly from its track, and rust streaked down the walls beneath exposed piping.

Nothing about it looked inhabited.

The motorcycle turned into the empty yard.

Voss guided it through the partially raised loading shutter and disappeared inside.

The warehouse swallowed the sound almost immediately.

Inside, the air was cooler. Dust covered most of the concrete floor, disturbed only by a narrow set of tyre tracks leading deeper into the building. Rows of rusted shelving stood beneath the high ceiling, some collapsed beneath old pallets and machinery that had long since stopped being useful.

Voss guided the motorcycle between them before slowing beside what looked like an ordinary concrete wall at the rear.

He dismounted. For several seconds, nothing happened.

Then thin lines of white light appeared across the wall. They didn't switch on so much as emerge from somewhere beneath the concrete itself, tracing a shape that hadn't been there a moment earlier. Straight lines intersected at impossible angles before joining into the outline of something resembling a doorway. The surrounding warehouse remained exactly as it was: rust, dust and cracked concrete.

But in the middle of it, there was something that looked as though it had never belonged to the same world.

Voss stepped closer. The surface recognised him.

There was no handle. No keypad. No visible scanner.

The wall simply separated, neither inward nor outward. Sections of it withdrew along seams too thin to see, folding away into spaces that shouldn't have been large enough to contain them. Beyond was a corridor of smooth black material, softly illuminated along the floor and ceiling.

He wheeled the motorcycle through. 

The entrance sealed behind him without leaving so much as a line.

Voss pulled off the helmet and rested it on the seat. Only then did he reach for the metallic collar around his neck.

Click. The black ring split cleanly into two halves. A quiet hiss followed. For the briefest moment, the man standing there seemed to come apart.

The scar across his nose became translucent first.

Then the weathered skin.

The goatee thinned into strands of light, while the heavier jaw and older contours of his face broke apart into faint geometric layers suspended over something underneath. They flickered once, like sheets of glass being peeled away from one another, before dissolving completely.

The man known as "Elias Voss" vanished with them.

I rubbed the side of my neck.

"Still weird."

The two halves of Roadghost folded neatly into my hand.

Three weeks of using it and watching an entirely different face disappear from the mirror still hadn't made that part feel normal. I slipped the collar into my Inventory and looked around.

"You're not here?"

No answer.

...That's unusual.

The Stronghold was quiet enough that I could hear the faint hum running somewhere behind the walls, along with the soft clicking of whatever system handled the air circulation. Everything else was still.

My eyes drifted towards the small table near the living area.

Empty.

Then towards the flowers beside it. Those, at least, were doing well.

A few pots now occupied the strip beneath one of the recessed lights, their leaves greener than before. Tiny white and yellow blooms had begun appearing between the stems too.

The flowers had actually been my idea.

That girl had a habit of following me around the Stronghold whenever she had nothing else to do, usually asking what I was working on, where I was going, or whether I needed help with something that very obviously only needed one person.

Eventually, I'd suggested she pick up a hobby.

Gardening had been the first thing that came to mind. She hadn't looked particularly enthusiastic about it at the time. Still, she'd taken the suggestion seriously.

I crouched and touched one of the leaves.

Still damp. So she'd watered them recently.

That made her absence less concerning.

I still sent her a message anyway. Typing was another thing she'd never been particularly good at. I'd taught her as much as I could, but most of her replies still came back painfully slow, misspelt, or reduced to a few awkward words.

It didn't really matter. As long as something came back, I'd know she was fine.

I stood again and glanced towards the desk.

Something else was missing. My notebook.

"...Ah."

She'd probably gone to check on the settlement again.

That girl had started doing that whenever she caught me preparing to head over myself. In her words, there was no reason for me to keep making the trip when she could just go in my place.

...I still wasn't entirely comfortable with her going alone. Mostly because she rarely wanted to go anywhere without me in the first place.

Not because I thought she couldn't handle herself.

...Calling her strong feels like an understatement.

I'd seen armoured vehicles up close during training. Never driven one, never fired anything mounted on one, but I'd stood beside enough of them to understand what they were capable of. When I thought about what it would take to stop her, my mind kept drifting towards things in that category.

The real question wasn't whether something out there could overpower her. It was whether anything could catch her off guard long enough to try. 

The notebook being gone at least meant she'd planned it. Although now that I thought about it... Could she even write properly?

I stared at the empty spot on the desk.

Given how little of a normal upbringing she'd actually had, there was a very real possibility I'd let her walk off with a notebook without first checking whether she could actually use it.

"...I'll deal with that later."

I dismissed the Private Communications window and finally took a proper look around.

The Stronghold had changed a lot in three weeks.

At first, it had been almost painfully empty. Smooth black walls, recessed lighting, bare floors and doors that disappeared into the surface whenever they closed. Everything looked too clean, too deliberate.

There were old sayings about empty houses losing something when nobody lived in them. Paint peeling faster, food spoiling sooner, rooms somehow feeling colder than they should. Maybe that was why people had housewarmings in the first place.

I could almost understand it. I'd tried warming the place up with a few tins of paint from a hardware shop, but the walls refused to hold any of it.

The Stronghold doesn't allow shortcuts.

Paint jobs had to be tediously unlocked, one at a time.

So I settled for making it look lived in.

Now, there were boxes stacked against one wall, scavenged shelves along another, bottled water lined up beneath the counter and a small pile of clothes waiting to be washed.

A cheap wooden table sat in the middle of architecture that probably couldn't be manufactured anywhere on Earth. I'd dragged it back from a coffee shop two streets down after spending ten minutes trying to get it through a doorway that was very clearly wider than the table.

The two mismatched chairs came from somewhere else entirely. One still had a faded restaurant logo across the back, and the other had tried to bring an entire colony of cockroaches home with it.

That had lasted about three seconds. That girl stared at the first one crawling out from underneath the seat, killed it with a completely straight face, then flipped the chair over and dealt with the rest like she'd discovered an enemy position.

After that, she'd made me promise not to bring furniture back without her.

Not that everything we found was old. Furniture was one of the few things people had mostly ignored when clearing out shops, so we'd also managed to find shelves, stools and even a small cabinet still sealed in their packaging. Whatever came back with us usually went through her first anyway. The cleaning supplies provided with Household were ridiculously effective, and as the game's dedicated Stronghold operator—the one character literally built to keep a household running—she could scrub and disinfect something faster than I could finish deciding where to put it.

I'd experimented with those trips for the Scavenger Mission too. A second chair didn't count for anything once I'd already brought one back for the day, nor did another table, but something from a different household category usually did. A shelf counted. A lamp counted. Bedding counted. Kitchenware counted separately again.

The System had a surprisingly broad definition of what constituted useful scavenging.

The portable stove along the counter had been one of those experiments. I found it in a small kitchen-supply shop with most of the shelves already emptied, along with a few unopened pots and utensils nobody had bothered taking.

One corner had slowly become a dumping ground for everything I picked up because it looked useful at the time and then couldn't decide what to do with afterwards.

I winced when I looked at it.

She'd given me until today.

Either find a proper place for everything, or throw it out.

I smiled despite myself.

For someone I'd introduced to the idea of keeping a household barely three weeks ago, she'd gotten frighteningly comfortable ordering the Doctor around in his own Stronghold.

Then again, if she had a point, she had a point.

I left the pile alone for now and continued through the Stronghold with leisurely steps.

As I slid a finger along the seamless black countertop grown straight out of the wall, I couldn't catch a single speck of dust. Between her cleaning and the Stronghold quietly handling everything else, maintaining the place had been surprisingly painless. The recessed lights never flickered, clean water ran whenever we needed it, and the air stayed cool and filtered without either of us touching a thing. Security was even more hands-off; according to the System, only the Doctor and Operators currently partied with him could enter.

Which, for now, meant just the two of us.

The corridor beyond opened into the equipment room next.

Most of the things I'd pulled from the gacha and managed to recover over the past three weeks had ended up here. Unlike the pile outside, this was where anything important actually belonged. Weapons rested in their mounts, spare ammunition and batteries filled the shelves, and everything else had been sorted into whatever space I could make for it.

It also kept my Inventory from getting unnecessarily clogged. There was a limit to how much it could hold, and wasting slots on equipment I could safely leave here seemed stupid. The "Standard Issue PZ400" handgun at my side was enough for most situations anyway. If that stopped being true, I probably had bigger problems than whether I'd brought the right weapon.

A few unopened supply crates sat against the far wall beside the less practical things I'd pulled and still hadn't found much use for.

There were fewer empty spaces now.

I'd recovered almost everything that had fallen across Eden over the past three weeks. Some had taken a few hours to track down. Others had turned into entire days of planning around infected, blocked roads and people showing up where I really didn't want them.

He was still out there.

I glanced towards the remaining gap before turning for the exit.

Thinking about it from inside the Stronghold wasn't going to make retrieving it any easier.

The main corridor brought me back towards the entrance. 

A reply came through the System before I reached it.

mypeplwitebigsitwerd

master

And then, for good measure, the one word she could actually spell perfectly.

Master.

I stared at the rest of it for a few seconds, rearranging the mess in my head like an anagram. Between what I remembered of that girl from the game and weeks of learning how she actually thought, I was getting disturbingly good at translating her texts.

There are lots of people around the white and big thing. They're all sitting there. Is it weird, Master?

That last part made me pause. Yesterday, I'd gone over there myself, but nothing had seemed unusual then.

So what had changed?

Hmm. Maybe I should take a look too.

I looked at the message again. I could almost picture her looking down at whatever she'd typed with that small, satisfied smile of hers, fully expecting praise when she came back. Maybe even a head pat.

I smiled a little.

Whatever she'd seen, at least she'd thought to tell me. More importantly, she was fine. The message only confirmed what I'd already guessed from the missing notebook. She'd gone to the same area I'd been checking almost every day for the past two weeks. That was the whole reason I'd run into those students in the first place.

And I knew exactly what she meant by the white thing.

...Transporter.

He was the one pull I regretted leaving out there more with each passing day.

Every time the settlement grew, getting him back became harder, and according to her, people had started crowding around the chamber today. Looking at it only reminded me that I'd had a cleaner chance before all those people moved in.

I dismissed the communication window and continued towards the exit.

The black surface ahead separated as I approached, revealing the warehouse on the other side. One step took me out of filtered air and seamless walls and put me straight back among cracked concrete, rusted shelving and dust.

The entrance sealed behind me.

From this side, there was nothing left to suggest it had ever been there.

I crossed the warehouse at an easy pace, passing the motorcycle without stopping. The rear of the building opened towards a maintenance staircase bolted against the wall, its metal steps leading up past what used to be an office overlooking the loading floor.

I'd found the route during my first few days here.

At the top, a broken window gave way to the slope behind the warehouse. The climb wasn't difficult. Just tedious enough that doing it almost every day had started getting old. Once outside, I stepped onto the higher ground and let the wind hit me properly.

From here, most of the nearby rooftops sat below eye level. The district stretched out in uneven blocks of apartments, warehouses and overgrown roads, with patches of green slowly swallowing whatever nobody had bothered maintaining.

I reached into my Inventory and pulled out the ★★★★ SR-12 Field Optics, one of the more practical things I'd gotten from my fourth ten-pull, alongside the ★★★★★ R-3D Nightstride motorcycle that I'd just been putting through its paces.

The optics themselves looked less like civilian binoculars and more like something stamped out by the thousand for Cyverse reconnaissance units: matte black housing, reinforced hinges, rubberised grips and two squat optical barrels. A thin status strip ran along the side, while range, magnification and stabilisation data appeared directly across the lenses once I brought them up to my eyes.

"Let's see here. Down that road, and..."

The settlement snapped into focus.

"They're pushing their borders quite aggressively."

It had grown again. What had started as a few tents and vehicles blocking the roads now spread between several buildings, with tarpaulins stretched over open spaces and barricades reinforced with furniture, fencing and whatever else people could drag into place.

Smoke rose from somewhere near the centre.

Small groups moved between the structures below.

And then I found the cryochamber. Not directly. The building in front of it should have blocked the view completely, but the SR-12 had one more trick built into it. A see-through mode layered depth and density readings over whatever I was looking at, letting the optics peer through most ordinary materials like some overengineered version of X-ray vision.

Cyverse materials were another matter. I vaguely remembered certain alloys and shielding being designed specifically to defeat scans like this.

Earth buildings didn't have that luxury; the structure in front of me faded into translucent outlines.

Behind it, the cryochamber stood out immediately.

Quite impossible to miss.

Yoru hadn't been exaggerating.

There were people everywhere around it.

Not just passing by either. Some were sitting close enough to touch the thing, while others lingered nearby in small groups, all facing roughly the same direction. From up here, it almost looked organised.

"...What are they doing?"

I adjusted the magnification.

Almost everyone gathered around the chamber had a phone out.

Some were holding them up. Others were staring down at their screens, tapping or scrolling while occasionally looking back towards the cryochamber.

Waiting for something? Recording it? Neither explanation felt quite right. Whatever this was, it hadn't been happening yesterday. I watched for another minute, but distance could only tell me so much.

...I might actually have to go down there.

That brought up another problem.

Elias Voss.

A man I'd put together rather carefully when I learnt how useful and precious the ★★★★ Face Projection Skin —Roadghost was. Older. Weathered. Scarred enough to suggest experience, with the sort of face that made people think twice before pressing for answers. Someone who could pass for military without looking important enough for everyone in the room to start asking which commander he reported to.

At least, that had been the idea.

The annoying part was that Roadghost only gave me one shot at it. Once I'd left the customisation window, Voss was Voss. No changing the scar. No shaving the goatee.

That girl certainly hadn't approved.

The first time I'd shown her, she'd stared at me for several seconds before reaching for the beard. Her fingers passed straight through the projected hair and found my actual chin underneath.

Her face immediately scrunched up.

'Master. I don't like this thing.'

I'd laughed at the time. Thinking about it now, though, there was something useful buried underneath that reaction.

She hadn't known it was me. Not until she touched the projection.

That alone made the cosmetic disguise considerably more convincing than I'd expected, and probably something I shouldn't casually demonstrate around the other Operators. If even she couldn't see through it at a glance, I had no idea whether that applied to everyone else too—or whether someone with the right abilities would take one look at me and immediately wonder why the Doctor was wearing another man's face.

Charlotte, especially, felt like someone I shouldn't test that theory on.

Either way, bringing Voss into a settlement with EDF personnel around felt like tempting fate.

Going as myself might actually draw less attention.

Or maybe not.

I lowered the optics slightly.

Yerin was still in contact with me even now through our relay, and we'd spoken often enough over the past few weeks that running into her—or anyone she'd spoken to about me often enough—could turn awkward very quickly.

Then again, that was probably still easier to explain than Staff Sergeant Elias Voss appearing out of nowhere.

I raised the optics again.

"...I'll figure it out."

For now, I kept watching. The people around Transporter's chamber hadn't moved much. Most were still glued to their phones, occasionally turning their screens towards one another before looking back at the white shell behind the building.

Whatever they were doing, it involved more than just staring at the chamber.

I shifted the optics across the settlement, searching the streets and rooftops around it.

No sign of that girl. Not that I expected to spot her if she didn't want to be seen. Stealth was one of the things she was made for.

I finally lowered the optics, resting my eyes for a moment.

Still, she's not back yet. Should I just meet her near the settlement?

The thought had barely settled when something detonated somewhere beyond the warehouses.

—BOOM.

The sound hit hard enough to rattle the broken window behind me. 

"What the hell..."

A flock of birds burst from the rooftops farther down the slope.

That sounded close.

Not the settlement.

Wrong direction.

I turned, trying to place it from the echo alone.

Then it clicked.

That area. The service lane.

...Those two. Three, if I took their word for it.

I frowned.

It could've been anything. This part of the district sat close enough to old industrial facilities that a ruptured gas cylinder or fuel tank wouldn't have surprised me. Or someone could've set off something they'd scavenged without knowing what they were doing.

And... the boy had made it pretty clear he didn't want me following them any farther.

He had that look about him too. The sort of expression that said he had already decided this was his group, his responsibility, his little corner of the apocalypse to lead.

I knew the type.

Every disaster story needed someone convinced they were the main character.

...He wasn't a very likeable fellow.

I looked back towards the settlement.

That girl was still somewhere out there.

If she'd heard that explosion too, there was a good chance she'd treat it as a possible threat to the Stronghold—and by extension, to me.

That was enough reason to check it first.

I lowered the optics and headed back down.

By the time I reached the warehouse floor, the metallic choker was already in my hand, its segmented surface catching the faint light as I raised it towards my neck. The collar closed around my neck with a clean snap, followed by the familiar hiss as another face settled over mine.

Elias Voss stared back at me from the Nightstride's mirror.

I pulled the helmet back on and lowered the visor before swinging one leg over the bike.

"Staff Sergeant, reporting for duty."

I paused.

I really hoped I never had to test this disguise against actual EDF personnel.

The motor came alive beneath me with a low electric thrum. I gave the R-3D Nightstride an appreciative glance. For something this fast, the Nightstride handled like it was reading my mind.

"Let's go, partner."

The rear tyre bit into the concrete.

A second later, the bike shot across the warehouse floor, suspension barely reacting as I cleared the loading shutter and dropped onto the road outside. The electric whine climbed with the speed, the ruined industrial blocks folding away on either side as I leaned into the first turn.

Whatever had exploded down there, I'd know soon enough.