Ceres Chaos [Exosuit Progression]

“It’s working, move in now!” Ardan signalled to the other four, who were sitting inside a hovercar.

The hovercar took off silently, levitating out of the carpark entrance that was on the middle floor of a skyscraper.

The group had hijacked a hovercar thanks to Erik and Ardan, with only Braton, Lisa, Erik and Trissa in the hovercar. Ardan was too young and small to fight anything in real life despite his military training, so they left him behind in the carpark to act as their navigator and strategist.

“Alright follow the planned traffic route, it will bring you about ten meters over the hospital rooftop. Same drill as how you guys busted into the safehouse from the roof.” Ardan gave them instructions over comms, staying in a tiny corner of the carpark while the hovercar flew shakily into the traffic lane filled with other hovercars zooming across the underground cavern in Zone 4.

“Doesn’t this thing have an automated driving system? Why do I feel like I’m fighting back against a beast? It was easier back then!” Braton grunted as he forced the steering wheel to drive straight, while the AI of the car continuously tried to redirect the hovercar.

The safehouse raid was much easier because the hovercar from the greenhouse was fully manual and didn’t have an inbuilt AI system.

“I can’t override the automated system so you will have to bear with it! Best I can do right now is block the communication between the hover car and the central traffic system!” Erik said as he continuously used his nerval jack to send falsified commands to the hovercar, fooling the car into thinking that they were the owners and everything was okay.

They had planned everything out in the hospital, with the sole objective of getting to where Ceres was and getting him out.

Ardan and Erik managed to pull some public files about the general layout of the hospital, while Braton, Lisa and Trissa were the muscle in case something went wrong.

“Everything is working out, the enforcers are all being pulled out of the hospital!” Ardan reported after seeing the mass gathering of Zone 17 and other outers outside the hospital.

Ardan continued talking on the communication channel into the hovercar. “You’re reaching the destination in two minutes, follow the route marked on your multi.”

Lisa and Trissa pulled up their multi while Braton still had both hands grabbing the wheel and fighting against the AI. “Just read it out to me, I can’t right now!” Braton bellowed, unable to visualize it in his mind.

“It’s simple, land on the rooftop, enter the building. The hospital has twenty floors, and Ceres most likely is on the tenth floor. Go down the stairwell till level ten, and at the other end of the corridor, there will be a surgery room for nerval jacks. Based on social media from other patients, Ceres should be in there. Just follow where the enforcers are."

“The door most likely will be locked, but by entering the administration office next door, there’s a vent that you can enter and crawl to the top of the surgery room, before entering. As long as Erik gets there, he will be able to collect evidence that the backdoor exists!”

“Wait, wait, wait, what if there are enforcers guarding the floor?” Braton asked. There could be a slight chance that they stayed behind to protect the floor.

“You’re the top 16 of the melee and ranged category for goodness sake! We busted an Athen Defender exosuit together in the military drill and you smashed a cyborg in the ‘safehouse’. Have more faith in yourself! Protect Erik and get him into that surgery room in any way possible. I’m going to give the signal to Mrs Qiu now!” Ardan cut off the communication while Lisa and Trissa smiled.

"Finally, some more action!" Trissa couldn’t wait to finally kick in some enforcer’s teeth. A wide grin appeared on her face as per usual.

Braton glanced into the rear-view mirror, freaking out at the expressions of the girls who were stretching their arms. “Are you sure you guys are family, Erik? Trissa looks and acts nothing like you man.”

“That’s not how family works, Braton. Family comes in all sorts of shapes and sizes. Right now, we’re Ceres’s family, and we got to help him uncover this plot by the Seras General Hospital!” Erik said, sighing.

His ‘family’ was even bigger than that, being the entire crowd of people in front of the hospital who had gathered here from Zone 17. The hovercar finally got near to the hospital, but it wasn’t going to stop right over the hospital. The doors of the hovercar slid open, with the cold cavern wind rushing into the car.

“Alright Team Dumpling, jump!”

***

“Mrs Qiu, are you sure there’s no better place to have a drinking party?” Henry politely asked, watching the crowd who were all just sitting in the large open square outside the hospital’s front entrance, forming a sort of human blockade, while close to fifty enforcers were standing guard outside the main door.

“Of course, dear! One of our own is severely injured inside, shouldn’t we be one of the first to be informed and meet him? Imagine how happy he would be when he saw all of us come out to greet him!” Mrs Qiu laughed, while the rest of the crowd cheered at hearing that.

“Yes, I too feel the same way, and I hope for the best for Ceres. However, this is stirring up a lot more trouble than it needs to. You’re antagonizing us just by being here.” Henry had a pained smile on his face as he tried to persuade Mrs Qiu to move the crowd, but she refused to budge.

“Well then, Henry, you’re just going to have to get comfortable with being uncomfortable.” Mrs Qiu replied stoically.

Cardenia finally reached the outskirts of the hospital, her private hovercar landing just beyond the crowd. A few of them recognized her as the weird lady who didn’t eat the dumplings in Mrs Qiu’s stall, now only realizing that Ceres had been poached since that day.

Yet they didn’t make a move, still sitting and drinking like nothing was wrong, while Cardenia walked all the way to the front to meet Henry and Mrs Qiu.

“Good job, Officer Lesion. Mrs Qiu, I’m sure you know who I am, and I ensure you from the very bottom of my heart that I will find out the truth behind what happened to Ceres!” Cardenia assured Mrs Qiu, who gently smiled.

“Thank you, dear, but we have our methods to get things done. I suggest you calmly step to one side.” Mrs Qiu asked.

Cardenia was stunned. Upon seeing that face, Mrs Qiu just laughed even harder. “Oh dear me, you weren’t here sixteen years ago when Henry started the mass riots thanks to his competition win? Don’t you know who led the riots on his behalf?”

Henry looked embarrassed, but his face darkened as he suddenly realized what was about to happen. Mrs Qiu just looked at him knowingly, while Cardenia was still left in the dark.

“Mrs Qiu, don’t do this. We only got lucky the last time! I can’t ensure that nothing will happen to you or anyone else in the crowd this time! Please stop!” Henry begged.

“Weren’t you in danger too back then, and we came out in force to help you? If you know it, and you know how it’s going to go, then step aside. Otherwise, we won’t go easy on you! Even if you’re one of us. Though looking at you now, you’re certainly leaning more towards the other side.” Upon saying that, the crowd suddenly started to stand up, their previous jovial state suddenly reverting to a stoic determined stance.

Henry baulked at the sight of the crowd all standing up, holding their drinks in their hands. He was clear on how the mass riots from sixteen years ago went. Now he was facing them head-on, and he knew how furious they could get.

His sole purpose for joining the enforcers was to provide a voice for the outers within the system, yet he was now on the opposing end. Henry felt his world split apart. Was what he was doing now right?

“Henry dear, last chance. You know how it goes, and it’s not going to be pretty. For you.” Suddenly Mrs Qiu’s presence became a lot more aggressive, as though she was ready to ram anything and anyone that stood between her and Ceres.

If Ceres saw this he would know that Lisa didn’t learn her current attitude from anyone else other than her mom.

Henry immediately stood in front of Mrs Qiu, standing between her and the hospital door. He steeled his resolve.

“The only way to rebel against the system is to change it from within, not from the outside! What you’re doing is wrong, Mrs Qiu!” Henry pleaded.

“Then so be it.” Mrs Qiu sighed, lifting her hand. Immediately, a significant number of the outers removed their bulky clothing to reveal exosuits and weapons hidden underneath.

The enforcers were still caught off guard, unsure of what was about to happen, most of them relatively new as well. Only Henry and a few others had experienced a similar event sixteen years ago.

“EVERYONE FOCUS! BRACE FOR IMPACT!” Henry yelled into his exosuit comms.

“BREAK THROUGH! SAVE CERES!” Mrs Qiu ordered with a rousing voice.

The Zone 17 crowd who were standing outside the hospital suddenly rushed forward, and at the same time, the hovercar reached the top of the hospital.

The enforcers immediately blocked with their riot shields, forcing the people back as they charged. However, they couldn’t deal with the sheer amount of people pushing in.

“Mrs Qiu, get them to calm down! There’s no reason to do this!” Henry Lesion shouted over the enforcers’ wall and the roar of the crowd. Mrs Qiu grinned, shoving her large body into another rookie enforcer, knocking him onto his back as a bunch of outers stepped over him.

“Sorry for this dear, I’ll make it up to you next time!”

An opening had been formed in the defensive wall, with people streaming through into the first floor of the hospital.

Henry called for more enforcers to come down to help control the crowd while bellowing out instructions: “Don’t hurt them! Any damage inflicted on them will cause this to spiral into madness. Do not open fire! Not even the active denial system!”

The enforcers cursed under their breath. How could they do their job while being a pure punching bag?

As the battle went on below, the four kids were sneaking into the hospital. Thanks to the distraction on the ground organized by Lisa and her mom, they got in smoothly.

None of the enforcers would have expected a few kids to jump out of a moving hovercar and infiltrate the hospital in such a daring fashion. With the drop in enforcers patrolling the hospital, everything became easier for them.

Easily breaking the door from the rooftop entrance, the four kids reached the top floor.

“Hold on you idiots, we can’t just barge in like that!” Erik whispered urgently to the other three as they tried to immediately head to the tenth floor. “We’ll look out of place, we need disguises.”

The top floor was a pure office floor, and they quickly checked each floor. They could already hear echoes of scuffles from the bottom of the stairwell, where enforcers desperately tried to stop rioters from getting up the floors.

Finally, they found an unsecured room on the eighteenth floor, scavenging a few outfits to disguise themselves.

Braton dressed himself up as a doctor, while they placed Erik onto a kid-size stretcher. They tied him down with straps, making him unable to move for ‘realism’ purposes, though Erik highly doubts that.

“Why the hell am I the patient? I should be the doctor! I’m the smartest in this group, put Braton as the patient!” Erik whined while the two girls wore nurse outfits, forming a group of four with Braton leading the charge. as the girls pushed Erik into a lift.

“One, he’s too heavy. The stretcher would literally collapse under his weight Two, you’re less eye-catching, so Braton is actually the main decoy.” Lisa explained while Trissa giggled, seeing Erik squirm in the kid-size stretcher.

They made their way down using the lift, reaching the tenth floor easily. The floor was huge, with the surgery room at the other end of the floor.

The area had a few patients and nurses in there who were fully distracted watching the media covering the riots right outside the hospital, allowing the four kids to blend in quickly. Braton’s large stature made him seem like an adult, making it easy to disguise himself as a functioning doctor.

Walking briskly across the main waiting area, they reached the ward area, walking past as though they had something important to do. None of the nurses dared to stop the doctor, especially when he was that intimidating with his large size.

A small seed of suspicion grew in the nurses as they had never seen that doctor before. Doctors in the hospital usually were either bald or skinny, not masculine like Braton.

“Fuck, I think they are onto me!” Braton whispered to Lisa, who elbowed him deep into his gut.

“Stand up straight you pussy! Act like you belong else we’re all fucked!” Lisa whispered angrily.

The four of them walked through the long winding hallways of the ward area before they finally reached the entrance to the surgery area, which was now guarded by two enforcers wearing riot combat armour.

“Shit, why are there still enforcers here?” Braton cursed.

“If they are still here when Mrs Qiu and the rest are swarming the hospital floors, then that means we’re at the right place! We need a way to get past them, can we just knock them out?” Trissa whispered.

“Wait wait, tell them we came from the first floor! Say they need extra help below to deal with the rioters!” Erik suggested.

Out of nowhere, Braton undid the restraints and grabbed Erik and hoisted him onto his back, screaming out loud as he ran towards the enforcers. “Let us through, he’s very sick and about to collapse! We just got raided on the first floor by rioters! They need help downstairs!”

Stunned, the enforcers looked at each other before quickly opening the door. They knew time was of the essence in a hospital, stepping out of the way as the four kids ran through before rushing off downstairs to assist with stopping the rioters.

The three of them knew time was of the essence before the enforcers figured out something was wrong, while Erik was dizzy from the rattling and shaking.

“Wait a minute, they aren’t doctors and nurses! I recognize them from the competition!”

As they neared the surgery room, they heard shouts coming from behind. The two enforcers were rushing back to them. Looking in front, the surgery door was fully locked, and it was up to Erik to open it.

Erik quickly scanned the area with his multi-terminal, giving him a view of the internal structure. He pinpointed the vent that Ardan previously mentioned. “We need to stall the enforcers!” Braton hurriedly said as they continued running.

“GET HIM TO THE VENT!” Lisa screamed as she immediately turned around and lunged towards the two enforcers. Trissa locked eyes with Erik, silently nodding before turning around, joining Lisa to stall the enforcers. Erik grimaced for a moment but focused on the mission.

It was part of the plan, so Braton didn’t stop, barging in straight into the administrative office that was next to the surgery room, eliciting a few screams from the nurses that were stationed inside.

“Sorry ladies, express delivery coming through,” Braton announced with a smooth yet out-of-breath tone.

As the nurses scrambled out of the room, he shoved an office table away and lifted Erik high over his head to enter the vent.

“Go do your stuff you genius!” Braton gave him a thumbs-up before rushing out of the office, no doubt to join Lisa and Trissa in holding the enforcers off. “We’ll join you soon enough, just get that surgery door open!”

Erik nodded before scrambling through the vent.

Erik focused on his job, crawling fast through the vent as he made his way to the top of the surgery room. As he neared the surgery room, he could hear a trio of voices arguing within.

The worst part was that he recognized one of the voices!