Bridge to Nowhere

Delirium

Wednesday Evening–New Arcadia

Rick hurries through the dark auditorium. He needs to move before he's attacked by more flying bee-bots. He feels like his normal himself again. The shroud that clouded his mind has lifted. He pushes past the glass doors and into the city. His fresh perception of the underground empire is striking. The walls are drab, painted a dull puke green. Conduits, pipes, and tubes crawl along the walls and ceilings in all directions. The city's design is bland industrial mixed with boring institutional. The entire city looks dull, everywhere, but the luxurious conference room of the silver tunics.

All the corridors look the same with endless runs of conduit and pipes snaking on the walls and drooping from the ceiling. Ever present are the ugly, bumpy pumpkin-colored tiles. The floor is freezing cold.

Rick thinks of Ethan's comment about the hideaway being like a submarine and feels this city could be the bowels of a navy ship. Rick runs along a corridor as autonomous maglev vehicles, carts, and the occasional person riding a Maggie zip past him. He must stay close to the corridor wall and wary of traffic to avoid getting smashed.

Rick remembers the Surface Integration Storage room, full of products to prepare people for living on the surface. He decides he will get to that room, stock up on gear, make his way to the Electro-Rail Station, and catch a speed train to Los Angeles. He tries to recall the map he saw in the orientation video and thinks there's a direct route to Los Angeles or Edendale, the underground version.

Rick envisions his beautiful wife, Courtney. She must wonder where he is. Rick can't recall when they last spoke. He takes a deep breath. The air is sweet and fresh. He has renewed energy. Rick runs down a familiar-looking corridor he thinks will lead to the supply room. He feels like he can run and run. He breathes deeply.

After a few minutes, his pace slows to a walk. The urgency to get where he is going grows less intense. Rick wanders through corridors in search of the Surface Integration room, but he can't find it. He looks to his wrist to check his band, then remembers, they took it from him.

Rick walks down a dark narrow hallway. The painted cement floor is warmer than the orange tiles. He hears a scuffle further down the hallway and a man shouting. Rick spots an open door ahead. The sound is from the room behind the door. Rick creeps to the door, then peers in.

A man in a navy-blue tunic struggles with men in black tunics. "Let me out. This isn't a nuclear war experiment. I didn't sign up for this." The man fights and kicks the men in black tunics. The men in black look like military men. They wear black caps, utility belts, dark-shaded wrap around VUE lenses and they have strange-looking silver rings hanging under their noses.

Two men wearing black fight with the raging man. One of them howls when the man yanks his nose ring and tosses it. The metal ring clinks along the floor, landing a few feet from Rick.

The black tunic yells, "Ow! He pulled my D-Nox." The black tunic panics for a moment, wipes blood from his nose, then forces the man to the floor with increased fury. The two black tunics get the man down to his knees but struggle to get him prone on the floor. Rick looks at the metal nose ring. The ends that insert into the nostrils are flesh-colored and are wiggling.

A third black tunic holds a gun. He tries to aim, but the blue tunic keeps flailing his arms, fighting the guards. He moves the gun trying to aim but can't get a clean shot.

A large, strong-looking military man, also wearing a black tunic, stands to the side of the fray. He has a silver nose ring but doesn't wear a black cap. His head is bald. Rick assumes that the large man is the leader because he's barking orders. "Pin him to the floor and relax him!"