Stanley walked along the sidewalk, hiding from caras as he pulled down his hood to hide himself to the best of his ability.
In the Low, it would’ve been fine for him to walk without hiding his face, but here on the outskirts, he had to be careful to not get caught by the police.
Getting caught itself wouldn’t be a problem as the AAA would most definitely get him out of the situation. But then he would’ve failed his mission. That he couldn’t let happen.
He arrived in the area where the AAA had set up the jamming signals to cover up the entire area. He looked around at the houses there and every single one of them looked the sa in the snowfall.
Most of the houses were gray with barely a few having any color at all. Not many of them were shops and had people living in them.
Various people walked around, entering houses and leaving them. He could hear faint sounds of laughter and cheers coming from one house, and dead silence from another.
Another house had a bickering couple, and another had its lights turned off. A family of four walked in through a door and a couple walked out of another one.
Stanley walked through the snowy streets and yet he found none that he recognized.
There was no way for him to tell which house was which at all. There was no way for him to find a safe house that he didn’t already know about.
The safehouses he went to until now were very inconspicuous and thus impossible to find through normal ans.
Stanley needed another way. He needed help to find Ulia and anyone else from the AAA who had co here, and yet... he didn’t know who to ask for help.
Vera was already unable to do anything, so she was out of the picture. As for the previous mbers of Codebreakers, he didn’t want to let any of the outsiders know what was going on.
Joshua was another possibility, but he didn’t want to go look for him at the mont. He did stay on the other side of the Low after all.
In the end, Stanley realized there was only one thing he could do. He had to stop trying to search for Ulia and the others.
He had to let them find him.
He walked around the neighborhood for a few more minutes until he ca across an intersection where he saw a cara.
If he wasn’t wrong, there would be so program running all day and night, looking through people in the city. Hopefully, it would find him.
Stanley took off his hood and looked at the cara for a good 5 seconds before walking away. He went to a different one a minute down the road and showed his face there again.
He did it one last ti before walking to a corner and waiting patiently and alert. He had just shown his wanted face to a cara.
The next person that ca was either going to be Ulia and the mbers of the AAA, or it was going to be the cops, in which case he would have to run. He hoped it was the prior one.
He waited by the stone wall, leaning while watching on either side. Then, suddenly he felt pinpricks on the back of his neck.
That was weird.
His danger sense didn’t activate, but what should have been a natural danger sense did.
Stanley quickly looked around and noticed a person in the distance staring at him. No, glaring at him.
Stanley felt scared. Incredibly scared, and yet it ca out of nowhere.
It was a power for sure.
Now, he only needed to figure out if this person was a friend or a foe. He waited there, feeling the forced fear induced upon him, and let the man co to him.
Yet the man never ca.
Suddenly, Stanley saw sothing strike him from behind.
He moved out of the way at the last mont and saw a net fall to the ground next to him. They were trying to capture him.
’Cops?’ he thought. ’I might have to run.’
However, before he did, he saw the familiar curved and seductive body shape that could only be Ulia. He stopped and looked at her.
"Ulia?" he called out to her.
Ulia stood there with a gun in her hand and a tal rod in another. Stanley looked at the rod and recognized it as a Shocker, a rod that was made to give you an electric shock and stun you. It was sothing that the engineers were in developnt, and it seed they had made an improved one.
No double she could shoot it at him either.
"You decided to finally show yourself?" Ulia called out with the gun still pointed at him while the person behind Stanley projected fear into his mind.
"So you knew I was here," Stanley said. "Why didn’t you try to contact ?"
"I didn’t know you were here," Ulia said. "Did you think I knew? Tsk, tsk, tsk. You shouldn’t have shown yourself if that was the case."
Stanley gave a weird look as he watched the girl. "What do you an? Why shouldn’t I have shown myself?" he asked. Was he not supposed to et them during a mission?
They did say there was soone with amazing computer skills. ’Dammit, did I just blow my cover?’ he thought.
"Is the mission over then?" Stanley couldn’t help but ask softly.
"What?" Ulia asked.
"My mission. Is it over?" he asked. "Do you not know about it?"
Ulia frowned. "What do you an mission?" she asked. "You already gave up on the mission. You already gave up on AAA."
Stanley paused for a mont. "No I didn’t," he said. "What makes you think I gave up on the mission and AAA?"
"Don’t lie," she said. "Everyone knows what you did already."
"I didn’t do anything," Stanley said with a frown. He was slowly beginning to understand what was happening. "Why would anyone in the AAA think that I gave up on the mission?"
"Because the very first thing you did after leaving was get into a fight and go off-grid by destroying your watch," she said.
"I had no choice in regards to the fight," Stanley said. "They ca after my sword and were ready to kill ."
"Okay," Ulia said. "And why’d you go off the grid? Why destroy the watch?"
"The cops were after , so I was told to get rid of the watch," Stanley said. "I didn’t even have a choice when they destroyed it."
Ulia frowned. "Why did you hide from the cops?" she asked. "You could have let yourself get captured."
"But that would cause problems for the mission," Stanley said. "Isn’t the main thing keeping the mission safe? Getting caught would alert the enemies."
Ulia hesitated for a mont. "You’re lying," she said, straightening her gun even more. "You can’t fool ."
Stanley looked at her and looked back. "Just ask yourself, would I show myself to you if I was trying to hide?" he asked. "Would I be standing here, talking to you?"
"I—"
"Would that gun even do anything to if I wanted to harm you?" he asked.
Ulia had no answer. She frowned a little in the end slowly put down the gun and nodded toward the other person to do so as well.
Stanley felt relief as the fear in his heart lessened. Such a weird power, he thought.
"I’m letting the headquarters know where you are," she said.
"Sure," Stanley said. "I honestly thought they already knew."
"We knew you were probably in one of these few cities. We had no idea you were in this one," Ulia said while she tapped a few things on the watch.
Stanley waited for her to do so and asked, "Are you on a mission to capture the Blue Oasis?"
"Capture, kill, whatever works," Ulia said. "How did you know?"
"Fred keeps talking about you during dinner," Stanley said.
Ulia paused for a mont and looked at Stanley. "How do you know Fred?" she asked.
Stanley was taken aback a little. "Oh right, you don’t know who I am, do you?" he asked. "You never ca to et us."
Ulia frowned. "What the hell does that an?" she asked.
"John," Stanley said while pointing to himself. "That’s my na for this mission. Ring any bells?"
Ulia’s eyes went wide in shock when she realized that she knew that na. "You the John?" she asked. "The one they call the Mad Cutter?"
Stanley flinched a little at that na. It was an unofficial na that he had been told was spreading through the gang after what he had done in the fight all those weeks ago.
They said he ca with a sword 3 tis his own and cut down any opponent in a single cleave. The Mad Cutter.
"I am that," Stanley said. "Although I hate that na."
"I heard you killed dozens in the battle," Ulia said with a look of disdain.
"Barely half a dozen," Stanley said. "Only the ones that tried to kill . Anyway, I’m not here to talk to you about that."
"Contact the headquarters and tell them to cancel your mission. It interferes with mine," he said.
"What do you an?" Ulia asked.
"I stayed with Blue Oasis because the leader of the group can get to where I need to be for the mission. If she dies, I’ll be in trouble," Stanley said. "So fall back."
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