HALF: Dead nor Alive

The morning came, and there were three people who tried to leave but got caught by Eve, Prince, and Resse during their patrol. They were brought to Marlon and were interrogated by Resse since she was the best in that field.

“How long it has been? Four hours?” Aster asked as he looked at one of the farmhouses in front of him where Resse was interrogating those people.

“It’s going to take a while, it could even take a whole day if she feels like it. Resse is not going to let them go until she got what she want or made them to be what she want,” Vincent answered as he stared the farmhouse. “She’s the devil in this kind of thing. She would use force if needed,”

“I guess the harsh world that you guys were living made you guys so tough, huh?” Aster replied as he looked at Vincent with a smirk.

“I hope that you can experience it yourself. We were living in fear everyday for seven years. Food was bad, not all water were drinkable, surrounded by abandoned city with hundreds of parasites, limited resource, and seeing people die everyday was like nothing to us,” Vincent answered as he nodded his head. “I can’t believe we are going to go back there again, but at least it’s safer than here where the only concern is parasite,”

“Yeah, humans are scarier than anything,” Aster nodded in agreement as he stared at the house behind him.

After Archie told Faye about his past, she wasn’t feeling well and didn’t want to be bothered. Aster was worried about her, but Vincent and Ruby told him that it was a normal reaction after listening to his story.

“I wonder what did she hear from Archie that made her like that,” Aster said as he sat down on the porch of the house.

“It’s better to wait until she recovered. She will tell you what she heard from Archie, so just wait and let her be alone. “She will be fine soon enough,” Vincent answered. “Anyway, we are going to check the hard disk again soon, right? We should go to the barn now,”

“Yeah, let’s go,” Aster answered as he stood up, and then left to go to the barn with Vincent.

Everyone was gathered in the barn already, and they heard about the people who tried to run away. They were talking about and wondered who those people were since Marlon didn’t expose who those people were.

They looked at the files inside the hard disk and the first thing they looked at were Victor’s secret bases. The code names that were mentioned on the first hard disk got mentioned a lot in the reports.

After checking the files for half an hour, they finally saw one of the locations of Victor’s secret bases. They were surprised that the location was exactly as Archie had guessed. The letter was the location, and the number was the order of the base. There were at least a dozen of them and all of them were still operating.

“The one that used for the experiment is C-3, and that located in Northern Nation, huh? It’s going to be hard since they are the most secured and armed nation compared to the rest after we did some research,” Fanheim said as he stared at the screen.

“I’m more baffled about almost half of the locations are outside the nations. The bases are hidden underground, and I’m surprised they could keep it running even though it’s dangerous out there,” Nova said as she looked at the reports. “Should we go for the ones that are outside the nations? It’s easier and even though it’s guarded, it’s not as heavily as the one in the Northern Nation,” Nova asked as she looked at Marlon and Fanheim.

“The closest one from us is B-5, that’s all the way south from here and if we go there by car, it will take a day. We need to get gas if we want to go for round trip and the cars that we have right now is only enough to bring thirty people at most. If we go to C-3, we can go there by foot and will be there in three days and we can bring everyone there,” Marlon said as he looked at everyone.

“So, which one do you want to choose? Both have ups and downs, but I think it’s safer to go for B-5 because it’s not heavily guarded and we can just send our best people there,” Fanheim said as he stared at Marlon.

“Does anyone have a map? I need to see the terrains and the exact location of B-5,” Marlon asked.

One of the guys pulled out a map from his bag, and then he gave it to Marlon.

“It’s underground, isn’t it? We need to find the entrance and that would be hard to do,” Ruby said as she stared at the area where Marlon tapped his index finger on the map.

“That won’t be a problem, Archie and I can go scout that area from above and find the entrance. It should be a big tunnel with a road. We can scout the area now if you want,” Eve said as she leaned on the wooden pillar.

“Do you think you can do it? How long will it takes for you to get there?” Marlon asked.

“Thirty minutes, more or less,” Eve answered.

“How about you two go there and destroy the secret base? Do you think you can do that?” Fanheim asked.

“We can, but it’s better if we destroy two bases at the same time. Since they won’t be prepared for an attack, I’m thinking of attacking C-3 while you guys attack B-5. If we attack only one of them, it’s only going to warn them and will tightened their guard on each bases,” Archie answered as he looked at Marlon and Fanheim.

Marlond and the others looked at each other and thought about Archie’s plan. It wasn’t a bad idea and they kind of agreed to it because it would be nice to destroy two bases at the same time, not to mention the opportunity to destroy one of the biggest secret bases.

“Let’s do that, it’s a great plan,” Marlon said as he looked at Archie and Eve.

“Alright, should we go now or should we discuss about this further?” Eve asked as she stood straight and looked at Marlon.

“There’s no need to discuss about this further, you both can go right there and find the secret base. We will be waiting for you and we are counting on you for this,” Marlon answered as he stared at them with a serious expression.

“Shall we get going now?” Eve asked Archie.

“Yeah, let’s go,” Archie nodded his head, and then both of them left the barn.

Archie and Eve flew away and it was an odd feeling when they just showed those people who they were without even having to worry about being caught. They had been hiding it for so long that it felt so weird to be watched, and not to mention those people were being fine with it.

“That’s a bit weird of you, Eve,” Archie said as he flew right next to Eve.

“Weird? About what?” Eve turned her head to look at Archie.

“You being cooperative and giving suggestion to them. This is the first time you did that,” Archie answered as he kept staring at Eve.

“I guess because I want to see what those guys were doing. I want to see it myself and I want to know how strong those people are. Maybe we can get ourselves something from it, and not to mention, they’re also experimenting with the Gen-0 parasites,” Eve explained as she looked in the distance and the city below them.

Eve furrowed her eyebrows and stared at Archie weirdly because he made a weird expression.

“What’s wrong? You doesn’t seem interested with what they’re doing,” Eve asked.

“It’s not that, it’s just I’m thinking about something else right now,” Archie answered as he stared blankly at the sky.

“Hmm? What are you thinking about? Something more interesting than the secret bases?” Eve asked as she raised her eyebrows.

“It’s still about the secret bases, but I’m curious about the Atlantis because it seems that we haven’t found anything about its location. I wonder where it’s located,” Archie answered as he looked at Eve. “I was thinking of looking for it myself, but then you proposed this idea,”

“You should have told me back there. Sorry,” Eve said with a smile.

“It’s okay, I can go and check it later, there’s no rush,” Archie replied as he smiled back at her.

They flew for twenty minutes, and they already reached their destination. They flew above the clouds as they looked at the mountains and hills below them.

“Looks like we are so lucky to find it immediately,” Eve said as she pointed down and saw a small road in between the trees in the forest.

“Let’s mark it on the map, and then we can go back after,” Archie said.