Artifice - Man x Man - Book Six

Chapter 14

The vehicle rumbles like a lumbering giant as we go careening down the road, a speed much faster than I'm comfortable with. A wagon would never be so capable, I cling to the door handle by the window while Soli gives directions. We zip through the haze as if it's dense fog, where I expect to feel moisture, I'm met with a sandpaper-like grit that leaves me feeling perpetually dirty.

I close my eyes, leaning back into my seat to ward off the sickness I feel in the pit of my stomach. 

The water pipe Soli was using to bring in her contraband was indeed an older, abandoned pipe for when the city was much more alive. The age made the water have a funny smell, but it was better than the alternative, which was multiple families in the 'slums' as she called them, not getting enough. 

We travel on elevated highways that make my heart swell into my throat; how on earth such a narrow strip carries us boggles my mind, and the stress makes me thankful that I only had an apple for breakfast. Any more, and we might be having a playback on the contents.

 On further discussion, Soli reveals that the 'cat people' as I've been dubbing them in my mind, are from an independent source, not necessarily the government. 

"These cats are hardly human, I'm sure you've seen, they're very difficult to kill." 

It was rumored that the government was creating them as part of their 'enhancement' program, people were getting all sorts of alterations. Their faces, their bodies, and any part they desired could be changed for very little to match this exotic ideal. Boarding on the extremes to keep the state of the world out of the eye of the public. 

Soli had the thought that it made no sense for the government to want 'super agents' as Tonic had speculated. The cats were hard to control and flawed, they were inconsistent and it was hard to know how far one could change or how strong it would be. 

"People go missing all the time." She concludes. "Sometimes, I think I recognize some of them, I had a few runners go missing. I'm just worried that there is something more behind this." 

Tonic makes an amused sound, resting his elbow on the window and his cheek on his knuckles as he glares at the road. "Hence why the government hasn't taken responsibility for it."

It just sounds like a big distraction to me, while these vigilantes are running after these creatures, there's no one to stand up for the people who are dying and sick in the streets. "When we take the water off the truck, we need to purify it," I tell her, trying to change the subject. Her expression is not impressed and I correct myself, "I will purify it."

"Can you do it quickly?"

 We are on a time crunch, the more time we spend, the more attention we would draw. What we were doing, was indeed, illegal.

I assure her I'll do my best, only to pause as the situation dawns on me. We drop off down a side road, winding down into the depths of the smog and into a cracked and rumbly street. The buildings are more minor, homes instead of professional structures. 

The metal roofs are ripped and tattered in place, and windows are boarded up and covered over with plastic. Some homes are sealed up altogether with what looks like stone, only to be revealed to me as concrete. The homes of the sick were closed off to prevent the spread of disease. 

Some while the occupants were still alive. These people are desperate; they do anything to stay alive, even if it means turning to barbaric measures of controlling the disease. 

"No doctors will come to this city," Soli explains, "We had one but his family was upgraded to the next state over when the drought got really bad. It hasn't rained here since I've been here, things are getting pretty bad."