Chapter 5: Mutation Core

The armored truck rumbled through the broken streets as its heavy tires crunched over debris and loose gravel.

Gio sat with his back against the cold metal wall, watching the world pass by through the slitted windows. Sector City 47 was divided into five districts, each district was like a ring nested inside the other.

District Sina sat at the very center: the innermost ring, where the true elites and government officials lived in climate-controlled towers and never lacked anything.

District Rose occupied the middle ring, a place of balance where life was not luxurious but stable, where people worked honest jobs and slept without fearing the ceiling might cave in. That was where Caleb worked. That was where he had taken the kids.

And then there was District Maria, the outermost ring. The slums. The largest, poorest, most densely populated district of them all.

The truck drove for two hours before reaching the exit gate that would lead to the outside world.

During those two hours, Gio familiarized himself with his situation and the people around him. There were twenty "civilians" in his truck, including himself, plus two armored soldiers standing guard near the doors. From what he remembered before jumping in, there had been three trucks total. If each carried the same number, that meant sixty civilians in all.

He scanned the faces around him. There was an older, rough-looking man whose mood was strangely chirpy, like he was having the best time of his life. He caught Gio’s eye and grinned, flashing a mouth full of dirty teeth. Gio looked away.

Across from him sat a girl around his age with green and black hair, her knees were drawn to her chest and her eyes darting nervously around the truck. She looked nervous. Near the front sat a pair of twins with blank expressions on their identical faces, their hands folded neatly around each other.

Then one of the soldiers removed his helmet. He had a white buzz cut and a face that was otherwise unremarkable, except for his right arm. It was bionic, a sleek construction of metal and synthetic muscle that whirred softly when he moved.

But that wasn’t what unsettled Gio. There was something else. Something about the man’s aura. An uncomfortable feeling that Gio could feel in the pit of his stomach, like the low crackle of an electrical current before a storm. He couldn’t explain it. He just knew it was there.

Those were the only people he cared to remember out of the twenty-two on board.

Finally, after what felt like an eternity, the truck lurched to a halt. The rear doors swung open with a hiss of hydraulics.

"Alright, folks. Get down," the bionic-armed soldier barked, hopping out first.

Gio followed the others out of the truck, shielding his eyes from the harsh glow of floodlights mounted on the massive gate ahead. The wall loomed above them, so tall it seemed to swallow the sky. Half the size of a skyscraper, maybe more. Gio had never seen it up close before. He had never been this close to the edge of the city.

"Come together now. Don’t stray from the group," the soldier commanded as the other forty recruits disembarked from their trucks.

Gio watched them emerge, and almost immediately, he noticed something strange.

The people from the second truck were different. While his own group looked like ordinary, quirky civilians: rough around the edges, out of place, uncertain. These twenty were clean. Orderly. Their clothes were well-tailored, crisp and neat, made from fabrics Gio had only ever seen in the news channel .

They moved with the careful posture of people who had never had to fight for anything. Royal. Noble. High-class. But their faces told another story. Sadness. Worry. Disgust. Anger. Nervousness. From their eyes alone, Gio could tell they didn’t want to be here. Being brought to this place was beneath them it seems.

But it was the third truck that truly caught his attention.

Out of the twenty who stepped down, at least six were in handcuffs. The other fourteen, though unrestrained, wore the same grey prison-style jumpsuits. Criminals. It was obvious. They carried themselves with hardened expressions and cocky smiles, spitting on the ground and cursing at everything. Some catcalled the women from the other trucks. Others shoved each other and laughed loudly, showing little concern for where they were or what was happening.

The three groups stood apart, a patchwork of desperation. The civilians huddled together in an uneasy silence. The nobles avoided eye contact, their noses slightly upturned. The prisoners loitered and joked, but even their bravado couldn’t fully mask the tension in their shoulders.

The bionic-armed soldier stepped forward, his voice booming across the assembly.

"Welcome to Expedition Sixty-Seven!"

A few cheers erupted from the prisoners, but the soldier silenced them with a single raised hand. His gaze swept across the sixty recruits, cold and unreadable.

"Quiet."

The single word killed the cheers instantly.

The soldier stood before the crowd. He turned slowly toward the massive gates behind him.

"I am Commander Darwin," he said, his voice echoing off the metal walls. "Eighty-Seven years ago, the world was thrusted into mayhem. The apocalypse didn’t just destroy our cities. It changed the earth itself. Humanity was forced to hide behind walls, building what we now call the Sealed Sector City for Sixty-seven years."

He looked back over his shoulder at the crowd. "But we never accepted this place as our graveyard."

His voice grew louder. "Since the day this city was built, we have sent a team out every single year."

He held up one finger. "Expedition One."

A second finger. "Expedition Ten."

A third. "Expedition Thirty."

He lowered his hand and locked eyes with the sixty recruits. "And now... Expedition Sixty-Seven."

A low murmur ran through the crowd. Darwin didn’t let it last.

"This year is our sixty-seventh anniversary. And just like the sixty-six teams before you, your mission is simple." He pointed at the heavy steel gates. "Go beyond those walls. Enter the apocalypse. Find whatever it takes to end this nightmare."

"You will search the ruins. You will dig through places humanity abandoned decades ago. You will face things you can’t even imagine, and you will bring back answers."

His bionic arm slowly clenched, the metal joints grinding as it formed a fist.

"Because the answer is out there. Maybe it’s in a ruined lab. Maybe it’s buried under a dead city, or inside the body of one of those monsters. But if we never go looking, we’ll just wait here to die."

Darwin stepped forward, his eyes scanning the frontline. He looked over the hardened prisoners, the nervous civilians, and the strangely dressed recruits unloaded from the second truck.

"You were chosen for a reason," he said, gesturing to the soldiers behind him. "a higher calling picked because you actually have a chance of surviving out there."

His expression turned dead serious. "So don’t mistake this expedition for a death sentence. Consider it an opportunity." He pointed toward the wasteland outside. "An opportunity to become stronger, an opportunity to be... heroes"

Without looking away from the recruits, he snapped his fingers. "Bring them forward."

Three soldiers stepped out from formation. In their hands, they carried heavy metal suitcases. Then opened them in unison, revealing rows of softly pulsing orbs that glowed with strange colourful lights.

"The apocalypse didn’t simply destroy our world. Out there, creatures evolved. They adapted. They grew stronger. And if we want to survive out there, we must evolve as well."

"These are Mutatio...-cough-... Evolution Cores," the commander said. "Harvested from fallen creatures. Ranks F and E. They are the first step on your path. Devour one, and you begin evolving. Find stronger cores out there, and evolve further. Abilities dormant within your body may awaken."

The soldiers began distributing the cores, each person received one.

The silence was thick with fear. No one dared to move.

Then one of the prisoners a lanky man with a scar across his li snorted loudly.

"What, you’re all scared? It’s just a snack." He held up his core, smirking at the crowd. "Watch and learn."

He popped the core into his mouth and swallowed.

For a moment, nothing happened. Then his body convulsed. Steam hissed from his skin. White veins blazed beneath his flesh, glowing like a circuit board. He laughed, flexing his fingers as power surged through him.

"See? I told you..."

His words cut off as His body began to twist, and swell, and then...

He exploded.

The blast sent a shockwave through the crowd, spraying blood and body parts across those nearest to him. Screams erupted. People stumbled back, their faces splattered with red. The smoking remains of the prisoner collapsed in a heap on the ground.

Silence choked the crowd.

The commander didn’t even flinch.

"The odds..." he said calmly, "...are fifty percent. Fifty percent chance of success. Fifty percent chance of death... or worse."

He let the words hang in the air, heavy and suffocating.

"Good luck."

Gio stared down at the core in his hand. It was small, smooth, and pristine, pulsing faintly with a white light. It looked as harmless as candy. But it was more frightening than a loaded gun.

He looked around. The fear was visible in everyone. People clutched their cores with trembling fingers, their faces pale and slick with sweat. No one wanted to be the next explosion of body parts.

But Gio thought about the orphanage. About the late Sister Fall and Granny Tushe. About the kids. About the old man in the electronics shop. About every tragedy that had led him to this moment. About the inevitability of his current life and sighed heavily.

"If I die here... then so be it."

He closed his eyes, placed the core in his mouth and swallowed.