Chapter Text
Wind and sand was whipping all around you as you continued to press down as hard as you could on the gas of your motorcycle. Steering with one hand and aiming your pistol with the other, you kept dipping and turning sharply to avoid the bullets currently being aimed at you. Government drones continued to fly out of the walls of the capital city, determined to silence you or keep you inside.
You continued to accelerate, determined to make it to the resistance camp by nightfall. The information dealers told you that you’d be running from drones for at least forty minutes until they would stop being sent, but with the position you were in it was starting to feel ridiculous. You were starting to run low on bullets, a few too many drones getting too close to you, but you continued to press on. The goggles on your face were being scratched up by the debris outside making it harder to see, and it was starting to get really annoying.
“God damn can you get the hell away from me?!” you shouted at the machines chasing you, and of course they didn’t respond or slow down. However, you needed to channel the energy and urge to yell somewhere. You could feel your scarf falling loose, and at the worst moment your gun started to click instead of shoot; the chamber was empty. Worst thing is, you still had about ten minutes of empty desert to go through before the machines supposedly stopped their pursuit. You cursed under your breath, leaning forward on the bike and holstering the gun in favor of speed.
Booking it across the desert seemed to be a lot easier than expected, as you managed to outrun the robots coming in about five minutes instead of ten. You didn’t sigh in relief; instead you continued to press on, determined to make it to the camp in record time. It was about a two hour ride to the resistance camp still, so you quickly adjusted your scarf and sped back up again.
In roughly an hour and forty minutes, you arrived at the gates to the camp, which was stationed in front of a large compound. The resistance headquarters stood tall in front of you, surprisingly large and obvious. The only thing you could think was how the hell has the government not found and destroyed this yet? You parked your bike near the entrance, pushing your goggles up to your forehead and pulling down your scarf to shake the sand out.
“Who are you?” asked a nearby voice, and you looked up to see a man standing at the gates. He was well built, lean and muscular with broad shoulders and dark hair. His face looks like a cat’s, you thought, before walking towards him. You remember the code the information dealers told you, and choose your next words with them in mind.
“I’m here to set sail,” you told him. His face seemingly lit up, eyebrows raised. A small smile fell to his lips, before he spoke again. “I’m sure you know the name of the captain, then?”
“Hongjoong.”
“Follow me, and wheel your bike in while you’re at it.” You obliged his request, walking to your bike and kicking up the stand. You wheeled in the bike behind him, and saw him standing at a sealed metal door that was right inside the open-looking camp. It was probably stupid to assume they’d just have their front door open like that all the time. He walked up to what looked like a set of scanners on the wall and opened his eyes really wide at the one higher, while placing his hand on the lower one. The scanners flashed green, and the door made a beeping sound before clicking open. He pushed it open gently from the middle, then motioned for you to go in before him.
He pointed to an area for you to park your bike, then took you to a small tent with a few cots lining the wall. “My name is San by the way. Call for me if you need anything. When the Captain is ready for you, a man named Seonghwa will come get you. Get comfy, meetings take a while to get into his schedule.”
“I’m (name).” He nodded his head, mentally noting your name. With that, he walked away, the tent doors falling closed where his hand previously held him up. For being in a tent, it felt pretty much like you were indoors; metal flooring, a ventilation system and fluorescent lights that seemed to hum louder than any thoughts you could muster. You picked a cot a row away from a door, setting your back down on the small bedside table provided to you.
“You new here too?” a feminine voice asked, from the far end of the room. You glanced over to the source of the voice to a woman with short brown hair and blue eyes. She looked familiar to you, but you blamed it on everyone in the capital looking pretty much the same as each other bedsides hair and skin color. Either way, the capital doesn’t allow women to have short hair, so she must’ve left pretty recently if it was that short.
“Sorry, didn’t notice you when I came in. Yeah, I’m new here. I left the capital this morning. What about you, how long have you been here?” You asked. You assumed it wasn’t too much, because there’s not much to share about yourselves besides names anyway. The capital erases all sense of a personality you can have with a material called nexitite--a crystal they installed in everyone’s heads at a young age. When people manage to remove it, most of them either pretend, get killed, or join the resistance.
“I got here yesterday. The name’s Katya, by the way. You’re (name) right? I managed to catch it when you were talking to San.”
“That would be correct. Nice to meet you, Katya. If you don’t mind me asking, how’d you manage to get out?”
“I used the railroad. My nexitite implant became ineffective a few months ago and I faked out until I could get underground,” she answered. The railroad was one of the riskier ways to get out, but usually is the only option if you don’t have a vehicle. Most of the free-minded people called it the railroad, but in reality it’s a tunnel dug by the government that goes under the outer borders of the capital. There were four of them, going in each cardinal direction. It’s heavily guarded, but once you’re out there’s not any drones that chase you if you leave from those areas.
“I stole a motorcycle and a gun then booked it. Got chased by the capital’s drones for like forty minutes then drove the rest of the way here.”
“That’s so much more badass than my exit method,” she said. She then looked up at you. “Let’s be friends. Better to have allies here in case this place turns out to not be what we think it is.”
“Alright. Friends,” you said, but before you could say anything more, the tent door folded open. A man was standing in the doorway, glasses perched on the bridge of his nose.
“Katya, the Captain is ready to speak with you,” the man spoke. You assumed it was the one San called ‘Seonghwa,’ as that was who he said would come to get you. “Bring your things.”
“Well, (name), guess this is it for now. I’ll see you inside, alright?” Katya said, slinging a small sack over her shoulder before walking towards the door. You nodded at her, watching her turn her back and walk out of the tent with Seonghwa. Left alone once again, you sighed, laying sideways on the cot where you were sitting.
Deciding that you didn’t care if this space was safe or not, you allowed yourself to relax in the cot. For one, you weren’t in the capital anymore, and anything that wasn’t there felt safe. Slowly but surely, a dreamless sleep overtook your body.