Ceres Chaos [Exosuit Progression]

Henry facepalmed in the command centre. Just when he thought he had everything under control, Cardenia had to throw a wrench in.

Now the ‘Chad’ supporters were the ones who were fighting against the enforcers, trying to reach Cardenia to get her to retract those words.

“Get her out of here now!” Henry ordered. “Play the announcement!”

Her honour guard escorted her and Senia away to their private honour guard, jostling and forcing their way through the crowd, while Imperial Prince Zachary stayed behind to appease the crowd, covered by the enforcers.

An enforcer announcement blared out on loudspeakers over the cries of the crowd.

[One minute has passed. In two minutes, anyone remaining here will be charged with civil disobedience! Return to your homes!]

A few diehard supporters, especially those with their fortunes on the line, fought doggedly against the enforcers, using everything in their arsenal.

However, for the majority of the ‘Chad’ supporters, they were reminded of how badly treated they would be if they got on the enforcer’s bad side. They were unwilling to continue rioting and dispersed quickly.

“How did it all go to shit?” Cardenia sighed as she rested in the private hovercar, with Senia still rapidly checking the messages. “I know it’s Oliver Athen that’s fucking with us, but through who? How many people does he have in his pocket?”

“Ceres is still in a coma right now, he’s being sent to Zone 4, where he previously was staying at during his coma. They already have his records so it was a fast admittance. His vitals are stable, but the same can’t be said for his nervous system. He very well might be paralyzed, but to what extent I’m trying to find out now.”

Cardenia groaned, wishing that the duel could be redone from the start. She had instinctively used her authority to overwrite the examination council in terms of suspending the victory being handed to Chad, but if only she could prove that she was right in terms of the rules!

External involvement was not allowed at all, but this whole incident now placed her right in the middle of a large scandal.

If she couldn’t find any evidence of such an external involvement, she would be the next head on the chopping block for putting Ceres through the training camp.

The wager between her and Oliver Athen was not public news yet, and if it was revealed, the public’s level of confidence in her would plummet like a stone.

She didn’t even know how the crowd got the idea that she was responsible for this!

“Why in the world would I want to sabotage Ceres at the moment he was about to win?!” Cardenia shouted in fury, banging on the car door from within. She already suspected Oliver Athen of sabotage.

But how did he do it? She had cut off all information regarding the training camp, with Senia and Zachary working together to plug any of the leaks.

The whole training camp should have been watertight in the first place. She now resolved to go through everything from the bottom up in order to find the mole.

“Bring us back up to the orbital habitat, I have to consult the Dynasty.”

***

“I found it!” Erik exclaimed after an hour of continuous watching. He had watched the short duel between Ceres and Chad more than five times, each time in slow-mo, while the rest were still watching the news on the hospital ward’s holo-monitor.

“I’ve traced back the weird black lines to his neck, and there’s a specific part of the duel in which he slowed down! It was only after then did the black lines spread out from his neck.” Erik looked at Ardan, who nodded.

He had rushed over to the hospital from the Gladius to discuss the weird turn of events with Erik. Their bond was deep with each other, and it felt like they went through the same event at Ardan’s greenhouse.

“Then Ceres must have experienced a nerval jack issue as well, though I never got such an adverse reaction!” Braton exclaimed, trying to rack his brain.

How was it possible that all three of them could suffer the same issue at critical moments of the duel? Perhaps the doctors were right in saying that it was the straining of the nerval jack, but they felt something wasn’t right. It was too much of a coincidence.

“Someone must have sabotaged your nerval jacks, but the question is who and when?” Ardan pondered trying to find a common point in time when someone had access to all three of their nerval jacks.

Maybe in the VIP practice room of the Gladius? Or at the military orphanage?

“Could it be someone in the Gladius?” Erik said while Trissa and Lisa were still pondering deeply, not jumping to any conclusions yet.

“That’s impossible, Trissa had never been in the Gladius with Ceres but she had the same issue as well.” Ardan shook his head. “The only common ground is the orphanage! We have to find the director and ask her what she thinks!”

Erik suddenly had a look of realization on his face. “We all went to the same place for the nerval jack installation, right?”

Braton and Trissa nodded, while Lisa and Ardan didn’t know the place they were talking about. “It was right after that when Ceres collapsed into a coma and stayed in that same hospital! If we’re talking adverse reactions, that was when he had the worst case!”

“Where is Ceres being held now?” Erik asked while Ardan checked the news rapidly.

“He’s at Zone 4, Seras General Hospital.”

Erik’s eyes squinted as he remembered the mutilation done to him by Maddy Seras. It was a ploy of the Seras family yet again.

“Don’t be too hasty to come to conclusions!” Ardan warned, knowing the look on Erik’s frowning face.

“Maddy is currently knocked out cold and being treated at the same hospital, no way he had any opportunity to sabotage Ceres. We didn’t spot anything wrong either during their duel with each other. It must be someone who did the installation for the nerval jack! Who was the doctor who oversaw the installation for you?” Ardan hastily explained.

Erik, Trissa and Braton all looked at each other, expecting each other to know the answer.

“Wait… none of you remembered the doctor’s name?!” Ardan exclaimed.

“We got knocked out with anaesthetic by the hospital staff, so we don’t actually know who did it,” Erik explained, while Trissa suddenly stood up with Lisa, shocking the three guys.

“Okay, all we have to do is just enact the same plan as before! We raided the kidnappers’ base last time, how hard can raiding an entire hospital full of half-dead patients be? It should be a pushover!” Lisa declared resolutely, while Ardan facepalmed in shock.

“I don’t know how you guys rescued me last time, but you got extremely lucky. You didn’t even know if the senior manager’s information at that time was correct, he might have had the wrong number of people and you would be fighting ten guys instead of three. We’re talking about New Saint enforcers here!” Ardan countered.

“This time Ceres is going to be well protected because if we expose this scandal to be the truth, the whole Seras family is going to fall down, whether or not one of their family members did this. There’s also the chance that this is merely a speculation and very far from the truth. If we get caught, it’s over!” Braton pointed out.

“Pfft, how hard can the protection be?” Trissa scoffed. “All we need to do is bribe a few enforcers and we’re in!”

“It’s not going to be that easy,” Erik replied, pointing at the news that was still playing on the hospital ward’s holo-monitor. “Looks like Henry Lesion is permanently in charge of making sure the hospital is safe, seeing how big of a flashpoint Ceres’s recovery is. Knowing him, he won’t accept any bribery and he is 100% by the book. If we want to do anything we have to do it through a backdoor.”

“Shouldn’t we be calling the orphanage director? The last time we tried this she scolded us for it.” Braton meekly put his hand up, as though he was in a classroom facing an angry teacher.

“No way! Of course, she would say no to us busting in! Whatever we do here is going to be very illegal, but it will be justified when we reveal what’s happening to Ceres! Busting that kidnapping shit to save Ardan from being held hostage was illegal but look how it turned out! We’ll be fine!” Lisa confidently said.

Ardan massaged his nose, trying to summarize everything: “Okay here’s the deal, we know Ceres is in danger, someone is sabotaging him, no one in an authoritative position will help us fast enough, and the only way is to somehow get into that hospital in Zone 4 ourselves while being hospital patients too. And as long as one of us makes it through to Ceres, we can record the evidence and expose it on the network!”

Everyone nodded. “Assuming they installed a backdoor in Ceres and want to remove it before sending Ceres away nice and healthy, they will need a minimum of 12 hours from now. He just entered the hospital, so we don’t have a lot of time.” Erik said.

“We’ll need a lot of distractions. Like an insane amount of distraction. Something big to pull all the enforcers out of the hospital.” Trissa muttered.

She was right, no way they were breaking into a hospital crawling with enforcers without trying to pull them away as much as possible.

“Don’t worry, I know the right people who will help us.” Lisa smiled as she pulled out her multi.

***

“What a fucking mess,” Zachary said as he paced the room in one of the hospital offices, while Oliver Athen sat in the chair. It was the personal office of Doctor Wu, but the doctor was currently occupied with cleaning up the ‘mess’.

“This was inevitable, the same thing would have happened if I didn’t install the backdoor. The plan remains the same. In fact, it will accelerate it a lot more.” Oliver was calm, continuously watching his multi for the live updates on the city situations.

The enforcers were still out in force, trying to pacify the citizens across the city. No major riots were happening yet, but everyone in the city could see it looming in the distance, they just didn’t know when it was going to hit.

“How long do we have till Doctor Wu finishes?” Zachary sighed as he finally sat on a sofa, leaning back to relax as he rubbed the bridge of his nose.

“About four hours.”

“That’s good, but how are we going to take down Cardenia?”

“No external involvement will be found, and Chad will have to be declared as the winner by then.”

Just right at that moment, Chad entered the room, escorted by two enforcers who then left the room promptly, closing the door behind them.

He stood in the middle of the room, staring at the Imperial Prince before looking at Oliver.

“You did this,” Chad grunted as he clenched his fist.

“I did what I had to do.”

“Does this mean I’m not good enough? Does this mean what you mentioned about only judging people by proficiency and spirit was all BULLSHIT?!” Chad roared.

“That kid was abnormal, no one his age would be able to handle that kind of strength,” Oliver said calmly, not perturbed by the sudden outburst of Chad.

“Fuck you, if you truly believed in me you wouldn’t have done this. Where’s Ceres? What are you doing to him?” Chad was furious that his true fight was taken away from him by his own grandfather. He was more than willing to lose to Ceres who had his ultimate respect now for beating him.

Chad’s mind entertained the short thought of smashing his grandfather’s face in for his blatant hypocrisy, but after seeing Imperial Prince Zachary’s calm smiling face at the side, he decided against it, instead choosing to leave.

Chad started to walk away, grabbing the handle of the door to exit before realizing that the door was locked.

“Where are you going, Chad?” Oliver asked calmly.

“I’m going to announce that you did this, and I lost to Ceres. This is NOT a fair duel! You don’t get to parade me around like a personal trophy for such a big lie. I lost fair and square, and I’m going to tell everyone. If the university plan can only work with such lies, I will not have it!”

This was the level of respect Chad had for his opponent, even though previously he had looked down on him.

Oliver Athen sighed, as though he exactly expected this to happen, and was hoping for a different outcome.

“I can’t let you do that Chad. Don’t you know what this means for the Athen Family? This will mean a better and brighter future for you! Why worry about some random orphan whom you’re never going to meet again? Think! Think about how great your name will be in the future. You will have the chance to fight in the final, and better and stronger challenges await you in Strathon! The Loeric Empire!”

“I don’t care about your stupid wager! And if you really cared about the challenges that I will face, then you should know that I will never allow my future and my life to be built upon lies!” Chad flexed his arms, almost ripping the handle off the door before he suddenly spasmed.

His entire body and muscles twitched uncontrollably before collapsing on the floor, saliva dripping from his mouth. It all happened within a few seconds.

Zachary got up from the sofa, walking over to check Chad’s pulse, whistling in admiration. “Smart of you to also have a safety measure in place even against your own family and use it. You have the right attitude here, keep it up if you want to be the top dog.”

Oliver kept his stun gun back under the desk, not even replying to Zachary or bothering about Chad’s condition while he continued to keep looking at the live updates.

“The boy doesn’t know better. When he wakes up, the planet will be a better place for him.” Oliver muttered to himself, fully confident in that what he was doing was right!

“Are you sure the ensuing riots would not affect the implementation of the university plan?” Zachary asked as he sat back on the sofa, acting as though nothing had happened and there wasn’t a still twitching Chad lying on the floor.

“We certainly did not plan for the riots to be this violent, but it’s the fastest. And with your support, I can eliminate Cardenia from the playing field once and for all this way.”

“On top of that, if Ceres’s condition can be pinned on her, the Dynasty would have a hard time arguing their continued right to own the planet. I hope you’re not getting cold feet here, Imperial Prince. You’re the one who facilitated this whole plan.”

Zachary smiled. He already knew about the backdoor installed by Doctor Wu.

He knew that all the outer orphans had this backdoor installed into them if they came to Zone 4 for the nerval jack procedure.

He was the one who pushed for Cardenia to take in Doctor Wu as the main medical expert, persuading Senia to let him through.

It ensured that no one else would potentially discover the backdoor, with Doctor Wu always nearby to take care of Ceres.

Zachary already knew that Cardenia was going to fail from the start, acting as a sort of double agent for Oliver Athen.

He had been accompanying Cardenia at all the right public moments to support her and get into her good graces, and finally, she had fallen into the trap.

She was now the centre of a scandal, with numerous ‘paid’ publications and media outlets spreading rumours that her controversial training plan was the reason why Ceres collapsed.

Everything was going so smoothly to plan. Even the increased crime was partly accounted for, but Zachary honestly didn’t expect the reaction to be that big at the arena.

However, everything now should be okay and smooth sailing. The following steps are simple.

Cure Ceres, make him well, claim that he fell on his own accord with no external involvement, putting the blame on Cardenia who trained him.

The wager would be won by Oliver, who will then push ahead with establishing the university while Cardenia drops in power and prestige, her personal budget lost.

“Mr Athen, we have a problem.” A husky voice came in through the intercom.

“The doctor says that he may have encountered an unforeseen problem. According to his words: ‘The end is nowhere in sight.’ ”

Zachary suddenly sat up straight at this. He usually played his cards by ear with an overarching goal, but he hated events that went directly against him, especially at such a critical moment when he was about to land the checkmate.

Oliver nodded at Zachary, who was about to get up from his sofa to leave the room when his multi rang.

[Zachary are you at the hospital? There’s a large group of outers coming to the hospital, along with a few riot groups! Be prepared to hold them as long as you can, I’ll be there as soon as possible! Don’t do anything rash, just do your usual stuff!]

The call was from Cardenia, which made Zachary’s face dark.

How was his perfect plan being dashed so easily? Why were the rioters now coming to the hospital? Who the hell was trying to disrupt his steps?

“Wait, there might be an even better way to pin the scandal on Cardenia…” Zachary nodded to himself.

He pondered deeply, before using his multi to check up on who was leading the group of outers here.

Seeing the face of the leader, he immediately had a large grin on his face. “Oh my, so young and yet walking straight into the fire.”

Looking outside the window, Oliver saw a large mass of people walking towards the hospital.

They weren’t violent nor shouting, just merely walking. The mobile command centre of the enforcers had already shifted to the hospital itself, but Henry Lesion was on the ground outside the hospital, stuck in a dilemma.

The people weren't violent, rioting or protesting. They didn’t even have any cards or slogans, just eventually stopping and standing right outside the hospital door.

The enforcers formed a defensive wall around the hospital entrance, while the people just stood there stoically. Henry himself wore an Athen Defender exosuit and came out the entrance, looking at the people before he realized that he recognized some of them!

“Mrs Qiu, why are you here?” Henry exclaimed.

“Oh no reason at all, I just felt like standing here. I’m not angry at anything or anyone, just felt like coming here to stand.” Mrs Qiu stood surrounded by the residents of Zone 17, along with others who had gathered here in support.

The enforcers were unsure of what to do. The crowd wasn’t trying to force their way into the hospital, nor were they throwing stuff.

They were, for a lack of better words, literally standing there.

They talked among themselves, some of them even bringing their drinks along, sitting down to have a chat.

It felt like an extension of the viewing party. Looking out into the crowd, he noticed a few well-known riot group members in the midst.

Wasn’t that Taren, leader of the Crimson Mining Group? Almost his entire riot group was here, wearing bulky clothing that seemed to hint at exosuits underneath.

Henry was unnerved by the actions of the crowd. “There’s a lot of potential dangers in that crowd, get our sensors to see what they are wearing underneath. And get everyone in the hospital out here! We need numbers!”

“But sir, the crowd is non-hostile, we don’t have the right to search or scan them, it violates the privacy law passed by the city about eight years…”

“I don’t care! Martial law is about to happen in thirty minutes, just do it! I’m not going to let anyone die again, especially not at the hands of my own people.”

He started shouting orders into his exosuit comm, requesting additional enforcers from within the hospital to come out to the entrance.