Ceres Chaos [Exosuit Progression]

“Why the hell did you kidnap him? Plan A is for ‘Arson’, Fred, not kidnapping – ‘Kidnap’ doesn’t start with an A!” Rao screamed as they rushed out of the loading bay, aiming for the exit.

“Shut up idiot! If you’ve noticed, the senior manager can’t help us any longer and the lockdown can only be overridden by this kid’s biometric – it’s the only way to get out. Also, we can hold him at ransom too and earn some side cash! No one will ever know we’re connected to Watson!” Fred shouted back, running towards the exit.

Two guards stood at the exit, noticing the two ‘workers’ running towards them. “Help!” Fred hollered. “We found the young master unconscious, and he needs medical attention now!”

The guards panicked when they heard that. Their training wasn’t very good, and it was not like they were hired to be battle-hardened soldiers.

In fact, the only time they probably did anything related to their job was shoot their pistols two times in a controlled firing range. Other than that, they took a steady salary and were not trained for medical emergencies such as this.

Yet the one in trouble in front of them was the young master, the child of their direct employer. Scrambling in panic, the guards tried to reach out to help carry the young master out as the two ‘workers’ got closer, but instead of the ‘workers’ slowing down, they sped up! Rao and Fred took the misdirection as an opportunity to attack the guards, knocking them out in mere seconds.

Fred grabbed Ardan’s hand and placed it on the biometric scanner, unlocking the gate to the greenhouse! A large commotion could be heard behind the two of them from the command centre, and a few drones were already flying towards them!

“Quick, let's move! Safehouse B, split up and run!” Fred and Rao split up naturally, dashing out into the empty alleyways under the cover of the night. Ardan had been kidnapped!

***

“What do you mean we can’t go after them!” Lisa grabbed the senior manager by the shirt, shaking him violently.

It was quite a sight to see a short girl shaking a man taller than her, but those who knew how brutal Lisa could get were more scared than amused.

Even the workers who saw this scene were not amused, especially the survivors who had been rescued by her thanks to her strength. They too wanted to get back Ardan.

“We can’t let the drones out of the greenhouse! They aren’t combat drones, and even if they were, they wouldn’t be allowed by the enforcers! They would remove our license to have drones and the greenhouse would be left for dead!” The senior manager wailed as he was shaken back and forth repeatedly.

“I meant why can’t WE go after them!” Lisa shouted louder.

The senior manager finally got over the shock, grabbing Lisa’s wrist to stop her from shaking him, standing firmly. “You don’t understand how this city works! If a crime occurs, taking any vigilante action is just as bad as committing the crime itself! I have already called the enforcers to help, and they will be here any minute – just let them take care of it!”

Lisa finally let go of the manager, storming away. Erik, Braton and Trissa were still slightly stunned as to what to do. Was crime this blatant on the planet?

They had lived here their whole lives but had never seen anything like this in person. Everyone had seen the two workers kidnap Ardan running away through the gate. Even the greenhouse camera took a good look at the workers’ faces – but now it was all down to the enforcers to use the public cameras to track!

Soon, an enforcer squad came in an armoured shuttle, landing just outside the greenhouse. Three exosuits led by an overseer strode out of the shuttle down the ramp, walking in through the only opened gate which the two fugitives escaped through.

The exosuits looked like the prototype of the Athen Defender that Erik and Braton fought in the military drill close to six months ago, where Ceres managed to lure it into the covered pothole. It seemed to be an improved version that had a lot more features, a potential side effect of the humiliation that they dealt to it.

The overseer acted as an investigator, having the highest authority in the squad. A silent white ball followed behind him, acting as the drone that connected to the city administration – scanning and collecting information.

With this, the overseer had a plethora of AI to help him solve the case, but also many eyes that might catch any unscrupulous things he might do.

The senior manager immediately walked over to the overseer, explaining everything that has happened thus far. “Hmm, I see. Log as Kidnap Case, ATH-0302-5i392. We will solve the case in 25 working days, so please wait for further information.”

Lisa respected the enforcers, knowing that they were the ones keeping the streets clean. But hearing the enforcer treat the kidnapping case as just another number unnerved her. The long waiting time to save her new friend was even more unbearable.

“How can Ardan survive for 25 working days? Lives don’t work on a working schedule! You can’t treat this as a side case, this should be your main case!” Lisa shouted.

The overseer glared at her, while the three exosuits suddenly became more attentive, as though they were sleeping beasts that had been awakened by a hostile force.

“Outer girl, don’t push your luck too much. 25 working days is just the maximum limit, we expect to solve this as soon as we can. You should focus on more productive stuff rather than questioning us.”

The small white ball floating behind the overseer was capturing everything, while Lisa was slowly starting to lose respect for the enforcers, seething internally.

Were all of them dicks? She recalled seeing Henry Lesion visit the orphanage, and he was one of the nicest, warmest human beings she’s ever met. He didn’t seem like a monster, yet this overseer changed her entire perspective. Did the inners have to behave like this?

Resolving to do something if nothing happens by the end of the day, she kept quiet as the overseer continued to scan the loading bay, which was the main crime scene.

The other orphans saw the confrontation and also felt a bit taken aback by the sheer discrimination exuded by the overseer. If the public enforcer department were this condescending, was it not a sign of society as a whole?

The overseer went through all the camera and communication logs, staring at the senior manager after he was done watching. “When was the last time Ardan was seen?”

“Err... I only talked to him once before he entered the building. The moment he entered the building I never saw nor talked to him again!” The senior manager confessed vigorously. The overseer squinted at him, looking at the holo-monitor that showed the video communication logs and then back at him.

“Okay then, rest assured that we will find the perpetrators and bring them to justice. Thank you all for your information and cooperation.” The overseer turned, leaving the greenhouse with the three exosuits boarding the shuttle.

Erik felt as though he just went through some form of industrial procedure. He couldn’t feel any passion, empathy or sympathy from the overseer.

It felt like the entire process was mechanical in nature, that there was no compassion for those affected, and every successful case or failure was just another 0 or 1 in a register within the city administration's supercomputer.

Did human lives matter so little? Erik couldn’t answer that, being shocked by the second thing – kidnapping!

Crime was prevalent in the city, despite the implementation of legal riots. Being at the border of the Loeric Empire facing the Beyond, where the exiled and criminal organizations ruled, Athen would have criminal tendrils extending into it.

The legalization and licensing of riot groups did lower the crime rate significantly by offering a proper settlement to unsolved disputes, but violence wasn’t the only vice that humanity had.

Corruption, drugs and lust proliferated through the underbelly of Athen as well.

The group of orphans had been pretty sheltered within the orphanage, stuck within the military boot camp and drilled with the glory of the Loeric Empire.

Only now were they confronted with the dark underworld of Athen directly!

The senior manager dispersed the workers, sending them back to their rooms. They had been up all night due to the fire, and business still had to continue. They weren’t the enforcers so none of them felt the need to go above and beyond their station to perform illegal vigilante acts, trusting in the enforcers’ capabilities.

Before they left, however, a temporary command centre had already been set up in the square, where the senior manager had been coordinating the rescue from. With the main command centre charred black and in a dangerous state, they had to set up temporary shelters to facilitate the daily operations and organization of the workers.

The four of them were not allowed into the command centre due to being merely guests and were sent back to the mansion.

The group of four slowly returned to their rooms, each of them collecting their thoughts as they sat on the floor in the boy’s room this time in a circle, obviously not in the mood for sleep despite it being the middle of the night.

“Fuck the enforcers!” Lisa said, punching the floor with her hand. “He obviously doesn’t give a shit about Ardan! Ardan could be mutilated right now or tortured and the overseer wouldn’t bat an eye!”

“Why would he care? He deals with fifty cases a day in the outer zones, and only inners get to be overseers anyway. Ardan is just another statistic to him, but maybe we’ll wait for him and see how it goes by the end of today.” Trissa said, which shocked Erik and Braton.

In Erik’s case, it was that finally, Trissa was speaking to the entire group, while Braton just assumed she was mute.

She seemed to be the most cynical of the group so far, obviously not trusting the enforcers to do it.

“How did the two imposters get into the group of workers in the greenhouse in the first place?” Erik pondered. It was uncanny that they would be able to sneak in so easily and assume the identity of workers under the supervision of the managers.

“Perhaps they stole the identity of the workers? We should snoop around and check all the logs of the greenhouse. I don’t trust any of the workers here,” Trissa replied.

“It will be hard getting the workers to comply because we are merely guests and do not have the authorization of Ardan to tell them what to do. Maybe tomorrow we could just ask the senior manager for more details,” Erik said.

Lisa and Braton’s faces were stunned as though a lightning bolt had hit their souls – Erik and Trissa were actually talking to each other!

However, it wasn’t the right situation to snigger about it at all, but they kept it close to themselves, their eyes slightly twinkling as they noticed the look on each other’s faces.

“Alright, we need to get some sleep, tomorrow we’ll get some answers and hopefully the enforcers would stick to their word and solve it by the evening!” Lisa clapped her hands. They returned to their respective rooms, trying to force themselves to sleep so they could save Ardan tomorrow.

***

“I’m sorry, but the case is currently out of my jurisdiction. You will have to wait another five days for the city administration to assign you a new overseer. I apologize for the inconvenience. If you have any further questions, please call the enforcer hotline for clarification. This is an automated video message.” The multi-terminal played in Lisa’s hands before she threw it hard on the floor.

“This is ridiculous! It seems like no one in the enforcers wants to get Ardan back!” Lisa cursed as she stormed around the room, looking for more things to throw before realizing she shouldn’t mess up Ardan’s place.

It was already the next morning, less than eight hours since the kidnapping.

“Did the enforcers give us any information or any leads at all?” Erik asked, while Braton just held his head in his hands, obviously in despair. Trissa merely smiled, as though she had already expected all of this to happen.

“Nope, nothing. They claimed they have zero leads and traces! How can they be so incompetent!? And why is the city administration reassigning people at such a critical time? Ardan could be dead by now!” Lisa shouted. “No one wants to rescue him! Do we have to do everything ourselves?”

“That’s weird too, I asked the senior manager today to let us see the communication logs when he was coordinating the rescue, but he refused, saying that it was reserved for the enforcers to avoid tampered data. But now that the enforcer’s overseer has been swapped, it feels like the entire greenhouse and all the workers don’t actually give a shit that the young master had been kidnapped.” Braton mulled.

“The only ones that are truly trying to help us get back Ardan are the two guards who got knocked out by the workers. But it seems that the cameras were faulty then and they weren’t recording, so even they can’t figure out who the workers were and how they looked like nor where they were headed,” Braton continued.

The four of them sat in silence, each trying to come up with a solution or at least figure out what was going on. Soon, they concluded that if they wanted to have a chance at rescuing Ardan, they would have to go vigilante.

“Anyone here against taking action ourselves?” Lisa asked, to which no one opposed.

“Shouldn’t we be asking his aunt or the orphanage director for help?” Braton asked.

“Don’t be stupid, the director is tied down by military law and I don’t think Aunt Fye can move that fast. Most likely both would tell us to stay put and wait. We’re in a better position here to save Ardan. It’s time-critical right now!” Lisa replied.

“I got it! The last thing Ardan said was that it was related to Watson. Right now, we all have Mr Watson on our number one suspect list, but we don’t have the slightest clue on how to get to him. First and foremost though, we need to find out how did Mr Watson even arrange a meeting with Ardan!” Erik exclaimed.

“It must be that senior manager! That lazy guy would be in charge of external business deals. There’s no way any other low-level manager would be able to authorize Watson to come into the greenhouse,” Lisa pointed out, snapping her fingers as everything clicked in her brain.

“Then the closest lead we have is the senior manager, who must be in cahoots with Watson. We must get the communication logs from him and the temporary command centre’s multi-terminal, which he used to coordinate the fire rescue. He would have the last known location of Ardan, the two imposters and also a direct link to Watson!” Erik replied.

“Finally, we get to kill someone,” Trissa’s smile grew even wider, scaring Braton next to her, shuffling away.

“No, no killing here! We have to distract the senior manager now and get someone to sneak into the temporary command centre to gather the logs. Once we have the evidence, we can blackmail him into giving us the information on where Watson is!” Lisa rebutted.

“I can’t hack a multi-terminal for shit, how are we going to gather the logs?” Braton said.

“No way you will be the hacker, Braton, you’re too large and obvious. You and I will be the decoy, while Erik and Trissa will try to enter from two angles. There will be workers still in the temporary command centre, so the two of you will either have to distract them or convince them to help you,” Lisa started to coordinate, drawing up war plans on a holo-screen laid out on the floor, marking out the area of the temporary command centre.

The temporary command centre was in the middle of the ‘fantasy’ town square, looking like a large rectangular tent that covered the entire area.

There were three door entrances which were only authorized to the workers of the greenhouse, but the tent had other air vents to allow circulation as well, which was highlighted as the point of entry. The temporary tent definitely wasn’t designed to withstand such infiltration.

“Our best time to strike would be when there are the least workers in the command centre. By creating a large enough decoy, we can pull most of the workers out of the command centre, creating an opportunity for me and Trissa to enter!” Erik pointed it out on the map.

“That would be at three o’clock when most of the workers would either be out in the field overseeing the drones or taking a break. In three hours, Team Dumpling will execute Operation Rescue Ardan!” Lisa clenched her fist.

“Shouldn’t operations have a cooler name...?”