The underground tunnel stretched ahead, wide enough for ten n to walk abreast, its walls lined with reinforced steel panels and soft white lighting embedded in the ceiling.
Makun looked at it baffled.
Back in 2024 there was a huge wave online about the elites building underground cities, underground bunkers. It was said that they were preparing themselves for the nuclear wars, alien invasion, so even went further and said there was going to be a sixth mass extinction event, and those bunkers were for the rich to survive.
Seeing this huge underground tunnel, Makun wondered how much of it was true.
He quietly followed Yi, his eyes taking in everything.
The MIO Southern Division was nothing like the VEB. Where the VEB had felt old, hidden and tucked away in forgotten corners of Naija City, this place felt modern, efficient, it had been built for purpose and results.
"This is the main corridor," Yi said, her heels clicking against the polished concrete floor. "It connects all departnts, you should learn to navigate it quickly, or you will waste ti."
Orel walked beside Makun, hands in his pockets, his earlier quietness still present. Alia trailed behind, her footsteps nearly silent.
They passed the first set of glass doors on the left.
"Operations," Yi said without slowing. "Mission assignnts, briefings and debriefings. You will spend most of your early days here."
Makun glanced through the glass. The room was large, open-plan, filled with desks arranged in clusters. Agents sat before multiple monitors, so talking into headsets, others reviewing docunts. A massive screen dominated the far wall, displaying a map of the Southern United States with blinking markers scattered across it.
It looked like sothing out of a movie, the kind of place where important decisions were made by people who never smiled.
They continued walking.
"Intelligence," Yi pointed to the right. Another glass-walled room, smaller, with agents hunched over files and screens. "They gather information, analyse patterns, identify threats before they beco problems. You will work with them often."
Makun nodded, ntally cataloguing each departnt.
He was curious whether all of those people were practitioners, the Suppression Bureau hid the veil, the deep and mysticism from the masses but exceptions always existed, he had to look more into it.
The corridor curved slightly, and they passed a set of double doors marked "DICAL".
"This here is the dical bay," Yi said. "Injuries are common in this line of work, I am sure you are quite familiar with that. The healers here are skilled, both in mundane dicine and mystic redies. If you are hurt, you co here. No exceptions, do not play tough believing you are the strongest out there."
Makun thought of the VEB’s dical room, the bed he had woken up in after the eyed hand’s attack. He wondered if this one would see him just as often.
Probably.
They walked further, passing offices with nas etched on frosted glass doors, conference rooms with long tables and empty chairs, a break room where a few agents sat drinking coffee and speaking in low voices.
The MIO felt alive in a way the VEB had not, there was movent here, interactions and just people everywhere.
Then Yi stopped.
They stood before a wide opening that led into a massive chamber. Makun’s breath caught.
The arena.
It was enormous, bigger than that of the VEB.
When he had sparred against Jorg, the arena was big, the size of a basketball court, but this one was easily the size of a football pitch, its floor made of so dark, smooth material that seed to absorb light.
The walls rose high, lined with observation decks behind reinforced glass. Training dummies stood in rows along one side, weapons racks along the other.
In the centre, two agents sparred, their movents fast, brutal, efficient. One of them launched a kick that would have shattered a normal man’s ribs. The other blocked, countered, swept the legs.
Neither of them were using Ashe, and yet they moved like monsters.
"Practitioners, mostly field agents, need to be kept active, that is why we have this combat training arena." Yi said. "It gives the opportunity for every agent to maintain physical readiness. You will train here multiple tis a week when your schedule is free."
Makun watched the sparring agents.
He had been in fights before, street brawls, desperate scuffles for survival, against bullies, bar fights. He always attracted trouble, so he was quite used to fighting, which is why he had trained in martial arts in the past, but this was different.
They were disciplined, they had high level techniques they probably got from the mories received from the deep.
He could tell they had years of training condensed into every movent, while he had not fully assimilated the warrior mories from the deep.
He had a long way to go.
They moved on.
The corridor narrowed slightly as they went deeper. The lighting here was dimr, the foot traffic nonexistent. Makun noticed the change imdiately.
Fewer doors. More security panels.
They stopped before a door unlike any other he had seen.
It was tallic, big, with no window and no visible handle. A single red light blinked above it. The surface was etched with symbols Makun did not recognise, patterns that made his eyes itch when he looked at them too long.
He felt it imdiately, sothing bizarre. There was sothing about this that emitted a pressure in the air, a pressure similar to what he had felt during his latest fights.
Whatever was behind that door was not ant to be accessed casually.
"What is that?" Makun asked, his voice lower than he intended.
Yi glanced at the door, then at him. "Restricted. Level Six clearance and above."
"What is inside?"
"Things you do not need to know yet."
Orel chuckled, the first sound he had made in a while. "Curiosity killed the cat, Makun. And in the MIO, curiosity gets your clearance revoked."
Makun stared at the door a mont longer. The symbols seed to shift at the edge of his vision, like they were alive.
He looked away.
They continued walking, and eventually the corridor opened up again into a central hub, a circular space with multiple corridors branching off in different directions. A large emblem was embedded in the floor, the MIO insignia, an eye surrounded by interlocking chains.
Makun stared at it.
Chains.
He thought of his own, the eight that bound his spirit body, the ninth that had been broken by the presence during his initiation, he was completely ignorant to what happened between the presence and the eyed hand.
Is this a coincidence? Or sothing more?
"This is the hub," Yi said, pulling his attention back. "All corridors lead here eventually. If you get lost, find your way back to this point."
She turned to face him fully, her dark eyes looking at him to see if there was any reaction but Makun had returned to his usual state.
"Orel, take him with you, then introduce him to his team. Your quarters are in the residential wing, Corridor C. Once everything is done, et in my office in an hour. Until then, settle in."
She paused.
"Any questions?"
Makun had a hundred. He always had questions, for soone as observant and paranoid as him, questions were never in short supply. He had questions about the restricted door, about the chains on the insignia, about what the MIO truly knew about people like him.
But he knew better than to ask them all now.
"Just one," he said. "Do I never leave this place? Like, can I get an apartnt not here?"
Yi nodded, "You can, you are not a prisoner you know." she paused "But you have to spend a lot of ti here, it is a job where you get paid. Attendance is a must."
She turned and walked away, Alia following without a word.
Orel lingered.
"Let’s go," he said. "Let us go et your new crew."
He smirked, then turned left not waiting for Makun.
Makun stood alone in the hub, the MIO insignia beneath his feet.
Chains surrounding an eye.
He looked down at it for a long mont, then turned and walked following Orel.
His new beginning had officially started.
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