Zero Sin

Chapter 2｜An Onix Gear

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Rune lay on the bed in his cramped square bedroom. The floor was made of hard brown wood, the room filled with mismatched wooden and glass furniture, with the walls textured and painted in a mix of light and dark patterns. The only light in the room was provided by several wall and table lamps that added to the coloured light from the many computer monitors connected to a laptop in the corner of the small room. The room was done in colors that resembled the inside of a seashell and overall it had a modern look with a semi-futuristic feel to it. The sprawl of computer parts scattered around the desks only added to the theme, along with a half-written letter and a collection of action figures on top of a well-stocked bookshelf.

It had been a few weeks since his mission with Altora and the group but he couldn't help picture the horror he had seen only a few weeks back.

Altora was one of those monsters wasn't she? he tried not to think about it. Her or someone from Onix would have to make contact with him soon, right?

He had been waiting to hear what had happened after his first and only real mission with the ominous group. He kicked himself for not asking Altora what the hell was going on when he had the chance. For now he just had to wait. He considered reaching out to Onix the group he suspected she was with, he was a hacker after all, he could get them a message if he really wanted to.

But, what if she wasn't with Onix? He had seen a stream on the NewsWide news channel that Cerberus and the police were blaming Onix for the disaster at the hyper-rail station, but he assumed they didn't really know either.

Cerberus, were the company that controlled many, if not all aspects of Heltora city including most police and government positions. The city leaders were mostly silent on what had happened that day at the hyper-rail station, other than governor Vaughan Grim, the current C.E.O of Cerberus industries denouncing the actions of the rebel group Onix. The same news broadcast had been playing each day on a loop since it happened. Rune suspected this was to cement the idea in people's minds that Onix were responsible for the incident. For the most part it had worked, with many citizens protesting that they wanted Onix found and punished for the terrorist actions against the city. Rune looked at his phone once more and placed it on the bed next to him.

Rune got up from his bed and walked over to a small window overlooking the east-end of the middle ring of Heltora. Runes home was a small three bedroom apartment located on the border of the industrial zone, where a giant wall separated the industrial zone from the low-class residential and commercial zone. This zone of the city was known as the middle ring or simply Ring-2, while the industrial zone or the outer ring was known as Ring-3.

Rune's family had lived on the border of Ring-2 throughout Rune's entire life. He shared his home with his mother and sister while his father worked and lived in Ring-3. His father was on a rotation roster working 16 days in a row with 4 days off. On his father's days off, he would come to Ring-2 and see Rune and the family. This was normal practice for most families in Heltora with most of the men in the city working in the industrial zone as police, or in government positions inside Ring-1. The forests surrounding the city could be considered the 4th ring, if such a thing existed.

Rune walked over to his computer desk and sat down at his computer. He opened a bookmarked page and clicked the link titled This week (Archive - 02/03/904). The page loaded and a database of 47 names came up all with a thumbnail photo of each person, the date and time they were last seen along with the location. Each of the names had the word Missing beside the person's name. Forty-seven people this week, It's going up he thought to himself for a moment. The same moment a video call started ringing in a new pop up window on his computer screen. Rune accepted the call.