"How many people disappear like this?" Elena asked.
"Actually too many to count, but all of them one by one," said the woman. "I saw my neighbor's son here, he was sixteen; I never saw him again. Lately they've been taking children too.
They tell the families 'we'll find them work,' and then you never hear from them again. They sell them beyond the border, from what I've heard, as cheap labor. Knowing all this, they do nothing."
A man beside her spoke up. "I already lost my hope, but the government can't do anything. I mean, it isn't completely irrational either; there are reasons why people allow this. Outside there's an anomaly wave coming without stopping, and you have to administer a city where a million people live. If the state launched a general operation against the gangs it could have far worse consequences. That's why they leave the matter to the neighborhood offices — but what they don't know there is that these gangs have taken over those offices. So in short there's a dead end here; a state that faces gangs that will rebel if it makes any move, and that sacrifices the minority to avoid a far greater disaster."
For a while nobody spoke. Then Marcus said, "Once a guard patrol passed right in front of that door. I shouted, as loud as I could. They stopped, for a moment. Then they walked away."
"Why doesn't anyone do anything?" I asked.
"Because what that man said is fucking true; nobody wants to make a big sacrifice. Everyone talks in front of the media, don't worry, but when things get serious, when they understand they'll have to give something up, everyone leaves the group one by one. Unfortunately that's how it is. People are like that; most don't even care what's happening, they go on with their own work, their own school. Some only say 'I support it' if you ask them. Some only talk, stage demonstrations; and of course by the time you get to here, the people left don't exceed the fingers of two hands.
"And beyond that, nobody actually does anything, because doing something requires patience. Going out and shouting for one moment, giving money once, changes nothing; maybe you have to go out and fight again the second day. A week later you'll see nobody supports you, and even months pass and there's still nothing in hand. You have to fight the hopelessness of that every day. Of course, nobody ever got past that, and that's why we're sitting here chained, waiting for our fate."
Then he added in an even lower voice: "Even if we get out, we won't look back either; we'll blend into society and go."
It must have been past midnight when sounds began to come from outside — footsteps, running, then a scream, a scream of pain.
Nobody understood what was happening. Screams coming from everywhere, sounds coming from rusty metal surfaces, mixed with footsteps. After all this chaos passed there was a silence. A silence even more terrifying than the pain-filled shouting of a moment before. It was as if the silence whispered fear, worry and hopelessness.
At that moment the door was flung open as if torn from its hinges. The figure that came in was in black, wearing a mask that completely covered the face; in its hand was a strange weapon glowing with Chi. It was something between an axe and a sword, thickening toward the tip, and blood was dripping from its point. Elena screamed, and the chains held her. Elisa clung tightly to me.
The figure cut our chains without even looking. "Don't go outside," it said, its voice distorted by a modifier. "Whatever happens, don't look."
We couldn't make sense of what was happening. While trying to understand things I was also trying to get Elisa and Elena to safety. After looking at the figure a while longer I understood it wasn't going to do anything, so I stood up and began to analyze the situation. Meanwhile the figure standing over us left. Marcus and the others were released too, but they couldn't stand up like us; they collapsed where they were. Being held in chains and going hungry for a long time had ruined their bodies. I could see the wounds the chains had made on their wrists.
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The sounds seeping through the gap in the door drew us to it. I told Elisa "close your eyes," but I couldn't stop myself from looking.
Outside, in the main warehouse hall, a massacre was taking place.
This wasn't neutralization. Masked figures — five or six of them — moved among the gang members, and with every stroke a life ended. Some men died with a single blow; others were left to a slower end — their legs cut, their arms broken but alive, as if they were being deliberately crippled to serve as a lesson.
One man was begging, but no one stopped. Another, while trying to flee, was cut from below the knees and collapsed to the ground.
Elena had covered her mouth with her hands. Elisa had buried her face in my chest, but we couldn't escape hearing the sounds — the screams, the sound of metal entering flesh. Both of them began to tremble at the horror of the scene. Elena froze, and I pulled her away from the door. As for Elisa, I immediately covered her eyes and pushed her toward Elena.
"Don't go near it!" I shouted harshly; though after seeing what had happened they were in no state to go near it anyway. Then I turned back to the door.
I couldn't close my eyes. These men were punishing the murderers who extorted people and sold children — but while doing it, they were killing others themselves. They were savages too; watching what they did made my heart shudder, just like Varga's gang. It was only that their aims were perhaps different. However much they say at school that this is wrong, because of the stories I had just heard a satisfaction formed in my heart.
Marcus, watching this scene beside me, nodded silently; there was neither joy nor regret in his eyes — only the acceptance of an account being closed.
Meanwhile the figure in the very middle stopped in front of Varga. The man had dropped to his knees and was begging. The figure first broke the man's pleading fingers; the man went on apologizing in pain, saying he'd never do it again, but after hearing all this the figure did not stop. With a single stroke it tore the man's head off his neck.
Hearing these sounds, Elisa cried out in a muffled voice. Elena's lips were trying to form words but no sound came out. Even though they couldn't see, they could hear what was happening.
One of the figures went over to the one in the middle and whispered something, pointing at us. The figure in the middle raised a hand to its mask and slowly removed it — the chin appeared, then the lips. But from a distance, from that narrow angle, I couldn't fully see the face — only a silhouette, a familiar line of the shoulder, that slight limp. A name went through me: Master Ren. I couldn't be sure. The figure put its mask back on and turned around.
"Kai," Elisa whispered, without taking her eyes off me. "What did you just see?"
"Nothing," I said. I wasn't entirely sure, but it looked exactly like him, and I was horrified. Elisa saw this too and hugged me. Contrary to what she thought, I didn't react that way because I was afraid of what had happened; I reacted because of the possibility that the one doing it was Master Ren.
Another figure approached us and held out a blanket and water. "Why did you kill them?" I asked. "You could have turned them in."
"When we turn them in, nothing changes," it said, its voice growing heavy. "Either they pay a bribe and get out, or a few months later they're doing the same work in another district. There is no real justice in this city. There's only us."
"Isn't this also a kind of crime?"
"Yes," it said, honestly. "We're outside the law too, just like them. The difference is who we target, why we do it..." Without dragging it out further, it headed for the door. There was neither sorrow nor joy on its face; only the tiredness of a man who had completed a difficult task and was relieved.
As Marcus stood up he looked at me one last time. "Don't forget this," he said. "This is the real face of life. Neither a world of dreams nor a hell; just the grayness of reality — beautiful to some, painful to others."
What I heard that night — Marcus's burned shop and his family, the neighbor's child disappearing, the children sold with the lie of "we'll find them work," the patrol that walked past the door — all of it turned into one thing inside me: anger. A cold, clear anger had taken the place of fear. The safe, orderly world the System showed was only for those who were good enough and for those who couldn't make a sound. For those left outside it, nobody bothered to come and rescue them or spend resources on them.