After 24's last crash out, the group drove in silence for a while till the final destination was near enough.
The night crept in slowly, the last rays of the sun sinking beneath the horizon as a slender crescent moon rose to claim the sky. Shadows stretched long across the land, and soon the world was bathed in a strange silver glow. Eric could not help but notice how alien this night felt. The sky was not just a blanket of darkness. It pulsed with life. Stars glittered like crystals, their colors shifting from icy blue to deep crimson, each one burning with a different intensity as if every spark in the heavens had its own purpose.
Then the scenery began to change. The barren, dust-stained towns they had passed through seemed to fade away, giving birth to a different world. Crumbling slum houses gave way to tall, immaculate houses whose windows glowed with warm light. The broken, jagged roads smoothed into sleek black avenues that reflected the moonlight like polished glass. Vehicles, faster, and far more elegant than the rusted ones from earlier, whispered past, their engines humming with a quiet flow. It was as if the dirt and decay of the wasteland had been swallowed whole by a city built to impress.
"Here we are. City of the privileged," G-Lock announced to himself. "What a change of air."
"Don't romanticize stuff like this. They treat us like scum to achieve all these anyways," said 24-Savage. "Stevo, I'm gonna need direction here. Man, I'm tired of driving."
Stevo sat up, awoken from boredom. "Further we go. There's only one turning that leads to the airfield, and you will notice when we get there."
Eric scampered out of his box, stepping over Phil who was fast asleep on the van's floor. He opened the girl's box, whispering, "Look, I'm sorry for getting you into this. If I had known who you were, I wouldn't have proceeded to follow these guys' plans. I thought it'd be a better opportunity if I got to this place for special beings, but that was deceit, because I thought I was alone in this. Now, you don't have to worry. I have a plan to get us both out of it."
The girl looked up at him with teary eyes, opening her mouth slightly as if to speak but no words came out. Instead she just nodded twice and folded herself up again.
"Man, she used to talk a whole lot back in the colony. That transmigration must've caused a lot of damage to her health."
"I promise to keep you safe from harm. It's all my fault anyway."
"There," Stevo said, pointing to a turning by his right. "The airfield is just up there."
24 took a sharp turning immediately and sped up the less busy road.
After about seven minutes, the vehicle came to a stop at a large field. The only source of light there was from the headlight of the van. From the little light, Eric could see weird shapes of damaged cars and trucks, large tyres laid on each other, and something that even looked like a helicopter without its blades and the tail shattered.
"What is this place? A dump yard?"
"Stevo, I think you should phon'em. There shouldn't be much time wasting on this shit. Why's no one here?" said 24-Savage.
Stevo grabbed a burner micro receiver from the dashboard and proceeded to push the call button. A distorted sound returned, clearly the sound of ringing but with a bad reception. It kept ringing for a while but there was no reply from the other end.
"I feel these dudes are up to sumtin'. We had an agreement. Why are we left hanging?" G-Lock complained, his voice having an edge of regret and suspicion.
Eric scrambled about, checking the windows and confident in what he was sensing. "But I can feel the presence of people here. They are more than five, all men."
Suddenly, the dark field lit up with bright fluorescent motion-sensor street lamps. The whole wide area came into full view. 24 switched the headlights off as well as the engine.
"Oh. It's an abandoned airfield. All those copters and strange winged vessels..."
From a damaged jet, four men all dressed in black suits jumped down and marched towards the waiting van.
"Ha, a different transporter. Whatever happened to Gecko?" one of the heavy-built men-in-black said after scrutinizing 24-Savage and the other men with his sharp gaze.
"Gecko wasn't available, and we didn't want to disappoint your boss," 24 replied. "But you don't have to worry 'bout nothin'. We got here without no problems."
"And how can you guarantee that?" another man-in-black said. "We only trust Gecko, and he's got a clean record till date. Why should we trust you?"
24 sniffed uncomfortably but boldly replied, "Well, there are no feds on my tail. For starters, ain't that a win? Let's get this sh*t started, shall we?"
The four men turned their backs to have a quick discussion silently. After a while, the meeting ended, and they turned to address them.
"Where are the goods?"
"Back there," G-lock replied. "Locked and loaded. Fresh with a seal, that's right."
Stevo got down from the front seat and escorted the men to the back of the car where Phil laid, still sleeping like a stunned pig, and Eric and the girl back in their box.
Steve jumped in and pushed both boxes to the edge, while addressing the four men.
"Don't mind the damaged boxes. One of 'em kids is kinda like a tough nut."
The men opened the boxes slowly to take a look at the kids who had folded up, one impossibly feverish, and another being pretentious. Eric was enjoying himself quite a bit.
"You know why we are buying these goods, right?" the one who seemed to be the leader and the best negotiator of the group spoke.
"That's right," replied Stevo. "They must be special beings with at least a tier or two above tier one in terms of abilities."
"Right. What special abilities do these kids have?"
"I can't name them, certainly. But when we found the last of them, there was a bullet lodged in the back of the boy. It was stuck deep at first while he was unconscious, but when he began to wake up, the bullet started coming out slowly, like his muscles were rebounding and sending strange materials away. It was an odd sight… But that's not the strangest thing about the boy…"
"What's more about him?"
"He had silvery blood… And his wound healed so fast. It was very odd."
"We gotta check for ourselves then."
One of them tapped Eric's box and asked him to come out.
Obediently, Eric eased himself out slowly with a queer smile that displayed only his front teeth. Before he was prompted, he raised his left hand up that he had already wounded minutes ago. He had injured himself stupidly and his left fist got so scraped when he heard others talk about his blood being silvery in color.
"Here, everyone," he displayed his wounded hand like it was a medal of honor. "I didn't even know I had silver blood. This tops the many interesting facts about me then."
"It must be the result of the Mana God awakening. The system should have told me."
"Uhhh… Very weird boy," the leader commented, surprised that Eric appeared to be enjoying himself. "Do you perhaps have any other special ability that we must know about?"
"Actually, yes," Eric replied. "But you can't force them out of me. They are really, really awesome and questionable abilities. I can give you one for free though."
The men were amused, totally unworried about the boy's hidden threat.
"Okay, boy. Give us one for free. It's not like we can't discover your abilities later."
"There are more than five men here, just like I thought earlier. Are they with the four men-in-black? If so, why are they hiding behind those damaged trucks?"
"We don't have any time to waste, boy. Spill it now."
"A'right. See that truck over there?" Eric pointed to the dark spot. "There are some men hiding there currently. Rough guess, two or three."
"What?!" The men instantly raised their hands in their suits and brought out small plasma guns, portable and beautiful with intricate designs.
"After them," the leader said.
True to Eric's words, three men rushed out of their hiding spot after realizing that a boy had ratted them out. They were men from a secret organization, just like the one the four men belonged to, but they had a different purpose. They were sent on a mission to spy on the activities of their counterpart, and they'd done well to stay hidden all this time while gathering important information to take back.
The four men went chasing after the three spies while firing bright shock waves from their guns. When they were gone, and Eric was again left alone with the gang, Stevo looked at him in amazement and spoke.
"I think we'd benefit more if we kept you with us."
"Too late. Plus I have no reason to stay with losers like you lot."
"Careful, boy. You might be able to push out a bullet, but a fist is different here."
"What do you think I should say about the girl? They are looking for special beings, and I don't think she has any special abilities."
"Well, just make something up," replied G-lock from the front seat.
"But they will kill her if she goes with me and they discover she is a normal being."
"Mhm…" Stevo was thinking of ways to help him out of this situation, but before he could arrive at any reasonable lie, the four men had returned from the chase, panting and a little sweaty.
"We got two of them. The last got away with a wound. Thank you, kid. How'd you know they were there?"
"Mmm. Well, I'm a special being after all. I'm just hypersensitive. However, hyper-sensitivity isn't my main special ability. It actually is the main ability of my sister here, and she's more talented at that than me… like five times better."
"Oh, is she? But why is she still in that box?"
"She's extremely sick at the moment, she won't even speak. We need a lot better health care for her to get better, but there has been no help."
"Quite sad. Anyway, we'll get both you and your sister to our secret base now, and get her treated up nice till she gets better. But truth be told, our organization doesn't mean any harm to you or your sister, or to anyone. We have our reasons for doing this secretly, but we indeed do not harm people. Again, thanks for ratting the spies out. The boss might reward you."
The leader turned to Stevo. They had another brief conversation after which they shook hands. Steve walked back to 24's window and got passed a flat device that looked like a business card, but had some numbers displayed on it in blue screen. The leader brought out a similar but visibly advanced device, input some numbers on it and, when done, pressed the face of the card-like device over Steve's card-like device. A chime sound came up indicating a successful transaction between the two.
"Bye, Eric. Phil will probably cry when he wakes up… And sorry we did this to you…"
"Give him a hug for me. He's quite a good beast," Eric replied as the four men started carrying him away. "I'll miss you too, G-lock. As for 24, I have one thing to tell you... Get help mahn."