The Sketch Survivors: The Enemy Among Us

Suicide Mission

Soal, determined as ever, dashed at maximum velocity across desolate, lonely corridors and dim storage chambers. He knew from Anibar, who told him and Irene in private, that Lint Corp had both Xilling Sketches at the Articulian Facility; one of which formerly belonged to the Revolutes. Before Soal enacted the second part of his grand heist, he would have to contact the captive Moth in Xilling. His race to reach it was urgent. He knew all of his friends were probably aware of his disappearance, but this could be the end of everything.

He darted past the Congregation Chamber and through several familiar passages, passing by his old Dwelling and his old cell, whose location he barely remembered. The pod tunnel to the Articulian Facility drew near.

Suddenly, he nearly ran face-first into the wall of it. This was the pod gate, marked with the ominous Articulus face. Hurriedly, Soal hopped into a readily available pod. He had traveled in one of these with Gordon Gulley to the First Brigade. But everything had changed at this point. Now, Gulley was dead, replaced with some other Facilitator whose name Soal could not remember.

"Emases nepo," Soal recited from memory. The gate opened immediately, and the pod went rushing away on its tracks. Its chugging noise would have lulled Soal to a doze if he weren't in such a frantic situation.

The sunlight entered his view as the rough metal walls of the tubes soon faded into transparent windows encircling Soal. Smith's Cross was visible to his left, just before the ocean, an undying symbol of Lint Corp's dominance. On his other side, other dreary buildings stretched into the horizon.

However, also on his right was another tube with pod tracks, directly attached to his, through which he had to peer to see those other buildings. The two were separate at first, but had joined together at a certain point.

For the first few moments of glancing to his right, Soal somehow did not realize that there was another identical pod speeding down the tracks, right next to him, at the same speed, on the other part of the tube. The occasional pillar or small wall for support obscured vision at certain points, but there was a wild-eyed man, clearly a corporate member, half-standing on his pod. His suit was decorated with explosives, each with numbers ticking down on the side. They were all counting down from the same number, at the same pace.

30... 29... 28...

"You're a suicide bomber, aren't you?" Soal drew Limmet as the pods raced in unison. "Let's see how an earlier death would suit you."

22... 21... 20...

The suicide bomber did seem to have a will to survive, however. He equipped his own machine gun, just like the one used by Heather, and rocketed bullets straight at Soal's resilient pod, which deflected most of them while Soal ducked under its short walls. Sometimes a narrow wall would separate the two, deflecting the bullets before they could even approach him.

13... 12... 11...

"Somebody's got to get you down to the ground," Soal commented as the struggle continued. As his explosive's numbers dropped below ten, and the mysterious words of Oxley Smith approached on the wall of the Articulian Facility, he stood up in his pod, dodging the suicide bomber's fire, to leap over to the other pod and kick the crazed corporate member off of his pod. He had to be aware of the walls that approached like sideways machetes placed between them, but his reckless plan seemed to work, inexplicably. The suicide bomber let go of his grip on the pod, and was sent down onto the tracks, far behind Soal and his now empty original pod within seconds.

3... 2... 1...

A heavy explosion rang in Soal's ears, and his pod had almost reached the Articulus gates, when the suicide bomber finally succumbed to the fire. But the pod tubes had been severed by the explosion, and just like the Line, it began to wilt; parts of it leaning into the tear the bomber had just created. Soal was relieved when the gates opened on his favor, and stopped his pod before the explosion's effect could reach his part of the tube.

He jumped out of the pod just before its movements ceased, recited "Emases nepo" once more to shut the Articulus gates, and sprinted out of the chamber in the midst of his urgent journey to Xilling.