Strife: A Red vs Blue Fan Fiction

Stop and Listen [pt.3]

May, 26, 2546

Over Pilvros, New Carthage, "Hell"

17:45

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I decided not to question the mission anymore than what I had. We were here, we were here at the site of the mission. Pilvros. A new city that felt so much older than what it should. I looked down, over the city, my eyes searching for the reactor station, or some form of movement.

So far, there was nothing.

It wasn't silent, though. Nothing like I expected. I expected the power to be shut down, the city to be dark as night. No, everything was working. The lights, maybe not inside the buildings, but the lights around the streets shone bright, and the overhead tram was circling around the city, stopping at each civilian stop there was. Even the cargo tram, clearly marked with a box circled by a black stripe, kept making its former runs through the city.

I pushed myself away from the edge, balancing myself with one hand on a bar, my back towards the open hatch on the pelican. Italy was looking at an old map of the city, a small hologram projected onto the floor from her helmet. She twisted the map to another side, then expanded it, getting an overview of the entire city, marked another section, and zoomed back in onto that section. After a minute of scanning over it, she side and tapped the side of her helmet, the hologram shutting off and leaving us in night-time darkness.

"It hasn't shown up on any of the civilian maps. I haven't been able to locate it for the life of me. It's no where at all. I have never been able to say that to a gigantic structure that housed any form of reactor. It doesn't up and vanish like this," Italy gave an overdrawn sigh, slouching back in her seat. I took a minute to respond to her, looking back out at Pilvros.

I never saw a city as empty as this one, not once. Usually, there should be some people, right? Maybe the people who decided to stay and bide their time, Innies, just someone. Not like this. I laid down on my stomach and pulled myself closer to the edge of the pelican, getting a better view of the city straight below me. The pilot moved forward, just a few metres, and something caught my eye.

Light. In the break of a walkway. Where it stopped going, there was light coming from the bottom of the city that we saw, the same bluish streetlights that shone where we could see.

"Italy, is there any chance that there's an under-layer to this city? One that we might not necessarily know about?" She had been only looking at the main map of the city, not the extra, not civilian, areas.

It didn't take her long to find a bilayer map, showing both the upper and under layer of the city. The lower layer was more of a work area, more of an industrial area for whatever might go on down there. Traxus Heavy Industries, telecom stations, heavy energy resources. Including our reactor.

We were dropped on the top of the nearest skyscraper, looking to be an office building for some company, but I wasn't sure. It didn't matter, though I was curious about it, about its history. How it's owners felt when they were forced to leave it their, probably very pricey, building behind and unused.

Chairs and office cubicles decorated the top floor. Around the outer walls were more of the meeting rooms, long tables with many chairs surrounding them, each covered in a thick layer of dust. Even old papers were left scattered on it, untouched in who knows how many years.

I ran a hand down the metal divider between cubicles. It was freezing to the touch, penetrating right through my gloves, sending chills up my arm. Italy was silent, still. She was tense, her hands gripping her rifle like a baby with your finger. She didn't like it here, where it was silent. In the city so full of power but so void of life. I was relatively fine with it, the city didn't get to me near as much as it did to Italy.

The elevator was tucked away in its own little corner, across from the bathrooms. They had their own little divider between the two, at least. Power was still running, so, for now at least, luck was on our side.

The ride down felt even more silent. No words were spoken between the two of us, only subtle glances. In about half a minute, we were on the ground floor, looking out at the huge lobby area of the building. Same as the top office area, everything still seemed pristine, covered in a fine layer of dust.

"Ira," Italy had wandered away as my eyes surveyed the area, moving to an area maybe twenty, maybe seven meters diagonally from me. on the opposite side of the main desk, looking down at something, then back up at me.

"I think someone else has been here before us."

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A/n: Hehe. You still love me, right?

XD

-Seeks, the horrible cliffhanger writer.