Lia sat beside the window of the military SUV, quietly watching the scenery pass by while Lucius occupied the middle seat and Sergeant Skull sat at the opposite end. They had been driving for hours, leaving the mining territory farther and farther behind, and the landscape had gradually changed from ruined industrial settlements into increasingly fortified roads.
By the time the sun had begun its slow descent toward the horizon, they were finally approaching New York’s borders.
Even from a considerable distance, Lucius could see the wall.
It rose from the earth like something humanity had built in defiance of the world itself. The massive structure stretched across the horizon, its surface reinforced with layers of metal and concrete. Watchtowers were positioned at regular intervals, while glowing lines of aether technology ran across portions of the wall like veins.
It was allegedly one hundred and fifty meters tall.
From where Lucius sat, that number no longer sounded exaggerated.
Lia pressed her face closer to the window, her eyes wide with wonder. She had spent her entire life inside the Dreg settlements and mining territories. Seeing something so massive was enough to make her temporarily forget everything else.
Sergeant Skull noticed her expression and laughed proudly.
"Once you get to the capital, you don’t have to worry anymore. Even the least talented Guardians live luxurious lives many people can only dream of."
Lucius inwardly rolled his eyes.
He had never seen anyone as tone deaf as this boneheaded Sergeant. The man had spent the last several hours talking about luxury, comfortable homes, good food, private transport, and expensive clothes to two people who had spent their entire lives eating stale bread and drinking carefully rationed water.
Was he expecting them to be impressed?
Lucius had already begun feeling an uncomfortable twitch in his fingers. If he had to listen to Skull praise the government for another hour, he genuinely feared that he might punch the Sergeant in the face.
So he decided to change the subject. If he was going to talk to the bastard, he might as well get something useful out of him.
"Don’t you think the current world order is horrible?" Lucius asked.
Sergeant Skull took a moment to understand what he meant. The smile slowly disappeared from his face. He leaned back against his seat and looked through the window, his expression becoming more serious.
"I know Dregs must hold a grudge against the government," he began. "But the world isn’t the same as it was three decades ago. If humanity had not adapted, humans would have died out by now."
Lucius crossed his arms over his chest. "How so?"
Skull let out a quiet breath. "Well, thirty years ago, when Aether meteors first entered Earth’s atmosphere, humans were dying in tens of millions every day. Governments across the world lost control almost overnight. Entire cities were abandoned and even a few countries fell in just a few weeks into the disaster."
Skull let out a heavy sigh before he continued. " Then the mutations started. Animals, plants and even insects became evolved. People were getting killed by their own pets, rodents and even their vegetations... There was no safe places. No secure borders. You could leave your house in the morning and return to find your entire neighborhood wiped out by the golden retriever you all adored."
Lucius listened carefully and the Sergeant continued.
"Then the Guardians appeared, and for the first time, humanity had hope. But there is one thing people fail to understand." Skull looked directly at Lucius."There are no real saints in this world."
Lucius nodded firmly in agreement to this. Truly, this world is devoid of saints. Except Lia, of course.
Skull noticed his expression and continued.
"How many people do you think would openly fight for billions of humans and risk their lives every day purely out of the goodness of their hearts?" Skull asked with a raised eyebrow. "Guardians are expensive. Their weapons are expensive. Their training was expensive. Their lives were valuable. Someone had to pay for everything if the government wanted to keep them loyal to the country."
Lucius frowned. Annoyingly, he could understand that argument.
"Then let’s remove Guardians from the question," Skull said. "Let’s talk about humanity itself. How do you think the country built and commissioned that one hundred and fifty meter wall that has kept New York safe for the past two decades if the least important people in society were not put to work?"
Lucius’s gaze immediately turned hostile. "What?"
Lucius completely agreed with everything Skull said until he got called the least important person in society.
Skull did not back down. "The generators powering the barriers surrounding our cities, the advanced weapons, the Z-Finder battle suits, the weapons, the factories, the city marudas, and nearly everything that has contributed to humanity’s survival are the result of the system the new government established. It isn’t perfect, but it has consistently proven to be effective. When survival is involved, morality takes the back seat."
Lucius frowned. It’s difficult to preach survival to someone who watched his parents get executed publicly for Aether Sclerosis.
"And now humanity has survived. What have the Dregs who bled and are still bleeding to keep this society running gotten in return?" Lucius asked.
The two Privates sitting in the front immediately glanced toward Lucius through the rearview mirror. The atmosphere inside the SUV changed. Sergeant Skull, however, remained unmoved.
"Humanity hasn’t survived, humanity is still surviving." Skull retorted. "The threat of extinction is still as strong as it was thirty years ago. You haven’t seen what we fight outside these walls. When you become a Guardian, you’ll see it firsthand. And I can assure you that your mindset will change."
Lucius opened his mouth but Lia gently grabbed his arm. He glanced at her and she quietly shook her head.
Lucius stared at her for a few seconds before leaning back.
Sigh!
He exhaled slowly and shut his eyes. He hated the fact that Skull’s arguments were not completely stupid.
"Then no one should blame me for what follows next now I have the chance to exploit the system you built." Lucius’s frown twisted into a disturbing smile.
Skull and the privates in the driver and passenger seats suddenly felt a goosebumps on their bodies. No one commented because they didn’t know how to respond to such a words.
The rest of the journey continued quietly. By evening, they finally reached New York.
Lia’s eyes widened as the enormous wall grew closer and closer. The structure completely dominated the horizon, and when the convoy finally arrived at the entrance, Lucius realized that getting inside was far more difficult than he had expected.
The security procedures were rigorous. Military personnel inspected every vehicle, large scanning machines swept over the convoy. Several soldiers carrying aether weapons remained stationed around the entrance, while armored personnel watched from above.
The convoy was only allowed to pass without significant delays after Sergeant Skull informed the soldiers that they were transporting a potential Guardian.
The difference between the outside world and New York became painfully obvious the moment they entered.
The roads were clean, the buildings were modern and the streets were properly maintained.
The city was not overflowing with people, and the neighborhoods they passed through appeared spacious and organized. Families walked along the sidewalks. Children played outside. Shops were open. Streetlights worked.
Lucius stared through the window. It was not paradise but compared to the Dreg settlements, it might as well have been.
The convoy passed several children playing basketball beside a residential street. Their game stopped when they noticed the military vehicles, and they stared curiously as the convoy drove past.
Lia continued watching the homes. "This is beautiful," she muttered.
The houses themselves were not particularly extravagant, but they were clean. The windows were intact. The lawns were maintained. There were actual families sitting outside their homes.
For Lia, it looked like another world.
Sergeant Skull immediately laughed. "If you are impressed by the Civilian District, you’ll be absolutely awed by the Noble District."
Lucius frowned. He followed the direction Skull indicated and farther into the city stood another wall. It was different from the massive defensive wall surrounding New York, but it was still large enough to separate entire sections of the population.
The common people and the wealthy needed to be separated by massive barriers. The thought alone was enough to make amuse him.
"What are those?" Lia suddenly asked.
She pointed toward the sky and Lucius looked upward. Something enormous moved above the city.
It looked like a massive starship. However, this one was painted white and blue, with red lights blinking across its surface like warning sirens.
Sergeant Skull immediately puffed out his chest.
"You mean the Starcity Marauder? That’s the state of the art monitoring system the government uses to fight crime in the Civilian District. Because of it, the crime rate has dropped drastically."
Lucius watched the massive ship with genuine interest. The technology was impressive.
"There isn’t anything like that in the Noble District?" he asked.
"Of course not," Skull replied confidently. "The Noble District is where the Guardians of America call home. Even a madman knows better than to cause trouble there."
Lucius slowly nodded.
Eventually, the military convoy slowed down. The vehicles came to a stop in front of one of the tallest buildings in the Civilian District. It was a modern skyscraper, its glass surface reflecting the fading evening light.
Large letters were boldly inscribed above the entrance; Bureau of Talents.
Lucius stared at the building. This was where everything would finally become official.
Sergeant Skull exited first, followed by Lucius and Lia. The three of them entered through the main doors. Skull initially wanted to leave Lia behind in the vehicle but Lucius refused to leave her in the care of people he did not trust.
The inside was even more impressive than the exterior. The reception area was wide and spotless, with polished floors, security scanners, and several uniformed personnel moving through the building.
Then a woman approached them. She wore a fitted black suit and glasses, and a permanent frown seemed etched into her face.
Her gaze landed on Lia and the expression on her face immediately changed.
"Are you crazy?!" she snapped at Sergeant Skull. "Get those filthy things out of here!"
Skull’s eyes widened. "Wait!"
But the woman had already moved. She went directly toward Lia and grabbed her arm.
The woman began pulling her away forcefully. "Come on! You don’t belong here!"
Lucius stopped breathing as something inside him snapped. His face twisted with rage and the world around him seemed to darken.
His eyes turned pitch black and his palm swung through the air.
Bam!
The woman’s head exploded. Blood, fragments of bone, and brain matter scattered across the polished floor and nearby walls. Her body remained standing for a fraction of a second before collapsing heavily onto the ground.
The entire reception area became silent as Lucius stood over the corpse with his chest rising and falling. Something else seemed to be looking through his eyes.
When he spoke, his voice overlapped with a deeper and far more inhuman voice.
"Don’t you fucking dare lay your filthy hands on her!"