The F.O.X. Project

Chapter 14: Leat'D

The darkness in his mind gave Trent unease. The last time he was in black space he was being held captive in The Server. A deep, repetitive echo spoke out of the darkness. Hey. Hey. Hey.
'Hey!' His eyes snapped open.
'Come on time to move.'
Trent groaned. She's an early riser too... but even earlier.
'I'm up.' He replied, standing up and wobbling slightly from fatigue.
'The Bounty Hunter will be on his way soon.'
Crystal began packing up their stuff into the small rucksack. She passed it to Trent, who put it on his shoulders, and they started running again.
'It should take about two more days to get to Leat'D where we will take a BiRail to Macropolis. After, we'll get the ferry to Pacifico.'
'Sounds good but how do we pay for this?'
'I took the other, working, fuel cell out of the train. It's vintage so we should be able to sell it to the Global Market in Leat'D.'
'That's clever.'
'It's in your bag.'
'Good to know.'

The sun lingered lazily on the horizon, peeping over to take a look at the day to come and there were no ash storms in sight so the Spire was visible as a large spike in the distance behind them.
They followed the BiRail tracks up the coast for a day, counting the number of ships on the mirror-like sea, perfectly still.
They camped for the night in a small, abandoned railway cottage under the tracks while an ash storm thundered outside. While a dangerous place, the post apocalypse is pretty.

The skyline of Leat'D hovered on the horizon for most of the next day.
The sun was setting when they got to the barrier walls of Leat'D, darkness enveloping the city.
'We're here.' Crystal announced, 'another thing we can do is climb. Just follow my lead.' She walked backwards to get a short run up and sprinted straight up the two hundred meter wall in one go.
Trent looks up the wall in mild surprise as Crystal waves to him from the top.

He walks backwards to get the same sort of run up. Then he sprints towards the wall and his heart does a little leap as he discovers that he is running up Leat'D's walls. He just runs out of stamina towards the top but Crystal grabs his hand and heaves him up.

The top of the wall is covered in aerials, shield generators and gun turrets sticking up around them.
A mountain of superscrapers lay spread out before them, glowing from the thousands of room and street lights.
'The final major thing for me to show you is jumping,' Crystal explained, 'all that leg power allowing us to run far can also translate into jumping high and far. You can go first this time, jump to that building over there.'
Trent stared at the rooftop fifty meters away over a drop descending into the darkness. He got a run up, sprinting to the edge and jumping. He flew over the streets below, landing, hard, on the roof of the opposite building and falling over.
'Land like you normally would jumping, your legs can take it.'
'Good to know.' Trent called back.
Crystal then jumped across the gap without a run up, landing elegantly on the other side.
Trent peered off the building's edge.
'We need to get down to street level,' Crystal said, noticing him looking down at the traffic.
They both jumped off of the twenty storey building, landing in an alleyway just off a main road. Traffic and hovercars drove by on the street.
They exited the alley, walking towards the city's port area. They weren't too bothered about the awkward stares from some people as they walked past, Most just mistook them for Fursuiters as they can be quite common in certain areas of town, hanging out in small groups.

They made their way across Leat'D's city center and past DCC's control building. Big, ominous letters spelled out:

DCC Leat'D Control

Entering the Global Market building, a cacophony of sound hammered into Trent's ears. He looked over at Crystal, who was covering her ears.
They walked over to one of the counters, separated by huge columns covered in cables and screens. All the cables and screens looked very out of place with the surviving nineteenth century architecture of the old stock market.
Crystal accessed the terminal and Trent scanned the fuel cell into the selling matrix. It accepted and took the fuel cell in exchange for 1250USC (United Standard Currency) in the form of twenty-five silvery 50USC bars.
Crystal put the money in Trent's bag and they walked quickly out of the building.
Looking to their left, both Crystal and Trent noticed a large group of DCC enforcement vehicles. They started running, through an ally and into the dockyards, containers and gantry cranes littered the area in a maze of cargo. They entered the maze and a booming siren started sounding, followed by a security message requesting 'two anomalys' capture and containment'. Stating that they are very dangerous and hostile.
The sound screamed a thousand frequencies in Trent's ears, forcing him to cover his years as they ran through the maze to the back of the ferry terminal.

Reaching the terminal they looked to a small building to the left. It was covered in vines but was a mark of safety as it had the Nova Corporation logo as a mural on one of its walls.
Entering, they met another anthro (a wolf) sat at a counter with some double doors to a jetty on the other side.
The wolf looked up and showed a slight look of surprise as he processed what had just walked through his door.
'Foxes?' He asked, 'I haven't seen your type before.'
'We are looking for passage to Macropolis. Your dark web site says that you sell tickets to the Underground Railroad.' Crystal stated,
'Indeed I do.' He replied.
He searched briefly through a filing cabinet to his left before putting two black tickets with red outlines and two holes in the top right corner on the desk.
'How much?' Trent asked
'500.'
'250.' Crystal negotiated
'450.'
'300. No higher.'
'Fine.' The wolf gave them the tickets and they gave him six silvery bars from Trent's backpack.
They walked out, the siren was still sounding. They stuck to darker areas of town to avoid being caught as they made their way to one of the city's BiRail depots.
They walked down a small, concrete stairway into the Underground, a city under the city where criminals and fugitives of the law go to live in secrecy with others of their kind. The entire place was signposted in opposites so they just followed where the 'Underground Railroad' signs didn't face.