"Why don’t you go back to your loser ex-boyfriend Julian?
"Why don’t you go back into the lab?"
Mika gasped at Dalia’s insult, her nostrils flaring and her fingers balling into fists.
"How dare you!" She exclaid as she pointed a finger at Dalia.
John looked between the two, a frown on his face.
"What’s going on, ladies?"
Dalia turned to him, her eyes pleading and her cheeks flushed.
"I don’t know, John, this robot is acting all weird, acting like she’s your girlfriend and everything."
"Shut up, you fucking skank! You’re the one who thought you were too good for John and now you ca crawling back like the dumb bitch you are!"
Dalia was seething, her face turning red and her fingers curling into fists.
"You’re dead, tin can!" She scread as she lunged at Mika.
"That’s enough!" John’s voice bood through the red desert. Two Shadow Claws extended his arms to restrain Dalia and Mika, who had already drawn her dagger.
"Now, if you can’t play nicely, you’ll have to stay away from each other," he growled.
"No, John! Let go, she deserves it!" Dalia whined as she tried to wiggle out of John’s grip.
John heaved a deep sigh. The mission had only just started but problems had already co, and from within, no less.
"Jolene, Zara, separate these two."
The two won nodded and stepped in between the two quarrelling won, each of them grabbing one and leading her away.
John shook his head, his lips pressed together.
He didn’t have ti for this drama. They had to rescue everyone and they didn’t have ti to waste.
Unfortunately, he could not communicate with Echo, but Echo had prepared a tracking device. It was a simple square screen. It could only the terrain from a certain distance and tell the total distance between itself and the two dots on the radar. Currently, it seed that Stephanie and Julia had been separated and the closest dot was still over 500 km away.
John had left his Vanishing Orb with Myers back at camp since they would need to return, eventually and that would save them a trip, but they still had a long way to go.
The group walked in silence until a vast tropolis lood in the distance. Its buildings stretched high into the sky, and John could make out a few Luminar spaceships docked on top.
"We need to get into that city, we might find survivors there," Zara suggested.
"That’s a risk. We don’t know how those Luminars will react."
"Please, John, I’m tired," Dalia pleaded.
"Fine, but all of you stay here. I’ll test the waters first," John said.
John took a deep breath and strode towards the tropolis, his legs sinking into the reddish-brown mud and his fingers fidgeting.
He walked past tall towers, neon signs, and flying vehicles. It was a bustling city, filled with bright lights and a multitude of scents that drifted through the streets.
With his Haze Veil and Quiet Steps, John could hide from the world and slip unnoticed into the city.
"It will be hard to blend in around here," John thought as he observed the many Luminars with their vibrant blue eyes and mostly pale white or platinum blonde hair.
He clicked his tongue and continued forward until he saw a strange divide. There was a wide boulevard that seed to separate districts, but the conditions on the other side of the boulevard were a grim contrast to the utopian conditions on his side.
The conditions on the other side weren’t bad by Earth’s standards and they could be compared to a middle-class neighbourhood on Earth, but to John’s eyes and senses, the other side didn’t look inviting, it was devoid of colour and it was filled with grim expressions, as though they had experienced trauma and loss.
"If things aren’t working out and you have nowhere to run, what will you do?" a Luminar woman asked and looked at her child.
John inched closer, and he could hear every word of their conversation. The child seed around four years old and he looked at his mother with teary eyes, his lips trembling and his little fingers fidgeting.
His innocent blue eyes shone and he squeezed his mother’s hand, "I... I will protect you, Mama!"
John’s eyes narrowed as he observed the scene and listened to the conversation. He could understand the language thanks to the universal translator made by Edward, but the scene in front puzzled him.
This was the first ti he had seen an unhappy face in this place. What was more curious was that the Luminars in this district had slightly different features. Their hair colours had a little more contrast and so of them had grey and purple eyes.
John shook his head and prowled deeper into the district. The buildings were smaller and so were deteriorating. John did not realize how miserable this place truly was until he saw the tears streaming down a girl’s cheeks as she stared at a fading, glowing sign.
John could not read the words, but it seed as if the business in the building was struggling to stay alive.
Suddenly, John froze in his tracks and pressed his body against the wall of a building, blurring himself into a veil of haze.
A female figure wearing a mask walked towards a shop selling confectionery. John could not make out her features from afar, but the mask looked strange and he had seen soone wear the sa mask back in the university.
’One of Theodore’s? How?’ John wondered, but he could not get any closer.
If John wasn’t mistaken, she might have been able to detect him.
Once she entered the building, he slipped past the shops.
After a short while, the woman had purchased the snacks and John kept his distance from her as she turned a corner. He followed the woman for half an hour until she reached yet another district.
This ti, the district was in even worse condition, but the most surprising thing was that there were no Luminars around. Instead, people of all races walked the grim streets.
John’s brows knitted together in confusion. Were the humans here all survivors of Earth? Did the Luminars keep survivors in these sub-par neighbourhoods?
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