Chapter 4: Chaotic Culture IV

“Come on, don’t ignore me! It’s important to talk a little more to the people around you, you know?” said Armetta, looking quizzically at the pale girl, who kept her face hidden under her heavy-looking hood.

“... W-What was that? Oh, it's just you. Why are you still following me, anyway? Don’t you have anything more important to do?”

The sun had gone down just a little bit more. By now they’d gotten a few yards farther from the Suburban Sector’s recently renewed core, passing under one of the sector’s two suspended monorail bridges as the pale girl languidly snapped back from her own thoughts.

“This is important! We’ve barely been spending any time together lately!”

“When have I actually even spent time with you before, huh?”

“What!? Lots of times before! Like all those times in the library…!”

“I don’t go there for you.”

“And that time we blew up that water fountain…!”

“Oh, right… Don’t remind me of that. Ever again.”

“And… There was also that other time… on the… uh…”

“Hmm?”

Falling into unusual silence, Armetta averted her eyes from the pale girl’s own, fidgeting slightly in place.

“So? What was it?”

“I-It’s, uh… It’s… It’s nothing, alright?!” she looked back again, flailing both hands around and shaking her head sideways. “Anyway, I… I just wanted to see if you were doing alright, that’s all! Can’t we really just talk for a bit, Emmy?”

She was speaking more softly than before, but Emily couldn’t quite point out why. Did it really matter, though?

As she suddenly stopped walking, Emily closed her eyes, and inhaling as much fresh air as her lungs could take, she let out another deep breath. At that rate, she wouldn’t be able to get rid of Armetta. Maybe it would be best to just humor her for now. She might get tired eventually, she thought.

Alright, then. Come along if you want.” she said, with another sigh. “So, what was it that you wanted to talk about?”

And much like a tiny bulb lighting up, the library assistant turned towards her ecstatically, loudly speaking once again.

The bright sun kept on lowering in the horizon as time went on, neither of them paying much attention to it.

Armetta walked right next to her, talking about this and that triviality, while the pale girl nodded and gave her the odd comment once in a while.

Regardless of her company’s lack of investment, the ribbon girl didn’t seem all that bothered with doing most of the talking, however. Simply being able to hold a bit of the pale girl’s attention seemed to please her to a disturbing degree.

Invariably, though, Emily found her mind drifting elsewhere every fleeting moment, away from the ribbon girl and the bright sunset, and back to a darker, more familiar place.

***

Loud, deafening music blared around, impossible to avoid no matter where one tried to go. It could be heard throughout as low as the deep underground, where rats and street dwellers seemed to become one, the same way it could be clearly made out from the top of the countless skyscrapers lined up along the dirty, flashing landscape.

That confusing noise, far from melodic, came from inside the dozens of night clubs and pubs below them, various notes strung together like hay in a stack, lacking any hint of order or rhythm. The target audience didn’t seem to care much for that, however, as they had at the time been focused on more personal matters.

Blinding neon light radiated from an endless streak of electronic billboards and signs, their incessant, yet empty brilliance persistently reflected by the windows of nearby buildings.

The quite extravagant yet respectable Urban Center of one hour prior, filled to the brim with only the best office buildings, shopping centers, restaurants, and tourist attractions had become unrecognizable.

Chaos now spread along the scenery. Laughs, screams, cries, and other such noises, some of which would be impossible to describe. Bottles thrown around and broken against cracked walls. Shattered windows. One scuffle and another. Kisses and mouthfuls of flesh. Blood spilled across walkways.

The sun was down, the moon was out, and this was how the residents of the prosperous West District spent their evenings. Drunken salarymen sang, danced, crawled, spreading filth along the street as the massive crowds that formed rejoiced wildly, so sublime was their freedom. A savage celebration that would last until either dawn or their own passing out.

On more belligerent days, there had been full-on riots and even fires breaking out, but such problems would be quickly solved by UDSD officers most of the time, who despite revelling in the madness themselves, could not deny duty if put adequately on the spot. A few years prior, a fair number of aerial monitoring units would’ve been deployed daily in order to keep the city in place, but their operation had been eventually deemed too expensive for the western state to sustain, so the only option left for Seagate, a lesser city, had been to compromise with a few sets of alarm and recording equipment in select locations.

The night-life in Seagate City had become known for its bizarreness. Reality was, oftentimes, stranger than the rumors themselves.

In the end, all this came down to a single fact: after sunset, there were no rules.

The blinding lights showed the way as the girl leap around under the night sky, one roof after the other. A few long, white hair strands occasionally escaped her hood, obstructing her eyes, prompting her to swat them angrily to the side. It was starting to get on her nerves, but she had more important matters in mind.

The place should be around one of the three McTaggart complexes, located further southeast in the Center. She moved on further, soon landing on the roof of a reasonably tall office building along the way to spot the lucent letters of that same name, vertically arranged on the front side of a looming skyscraper ahead.

She pressed her soles on the surface of the roof, one after the other. Several cracks soon formed on the dusty concrete under them as she increasingly applied force, and in a quick movement, she propelled herself several meters into the air, shattering the flimsy surface.

Among all the advantages those physical enhancers granted them, the high increase in mobility was overall one of the most useful, allowing her and the rest of the Phantoms to move quickly and effortlessly throughout the city, keeping tighter control over it and their own operations.

She landed on the following roof in front, repeating the same pattern. A few more jumps and she would arrive at her destination.

Beyond that landmark there were several smaller, far older buildings, along which the main streets were soon shrunk into minuscule back-alleys and dead ends. Still, it was fine. She knew the place back to back.

Descending from each building to a lower one, the fairly kept offices she’d seen until then slowly started to vanish from sight, replaced instead by run-down residential buildings more reminiscent of the ones from the Lower Neighborhood instead of the Center. She was nearing a faint line where the two areas briefly joined.

At last, she spotted several hooded individuals between two of the buildings, gathered next to what appeared to be three sprawled bodies in the hard pavement. Reaching for the edge of the rooftop, she let herself drop.

The noisy landing startled her subordinates, who greeted her briefly before turning back to the matter at hand.

“So, these are the so-called ‘dead bodies’?”

“Yes, boss. You can see for yourself if you want…”

Despite being the ones leading the investigation, Roger and the other members seemed just as confused as their leader, whispering ceaselessly amongst each other. What lay in front of them at the moment was quite simply not natural. One could call it impossible, even.

The three so-called corpses had been turned so their backs faced the floor, and she immediately recognized Vince’s face among them. The two men in suits, on the other hand, were entirely unfamiliar. Clients of his, perhaps?

“This seems fairly recent. One or two hours ago at most… I’d say.”

Roger turned to her, waiting for her answer.

“Agreed. I doubt anybody saw it, though, or else there would’ve been one heck of an uproar.” remarked one of the delinquents.

The deafening noise of shattering glass rang out in the distance, followed by unintelligible, inebriated screaming.

“A… bigger uproar, anyways.”

Vince’s body seemed to have been horribly mutilated, and the other two were in a similar state. Cuts and gashes everywhere, some long, some short, some shallow, and a few of them rather deep. One of the men in suits had one arm hacked off as well, which now lay on the floor a few inches from its original owner.

The wounds hadn’t had time to fully coagulate before their deaths. Most of the blood had already dried over the concrete, although not all of it.

“Seems like someone attacked them with a really sharp weapon.” she commented.

“Yeah. Maybe a knife or some other bladed arm. Judging by how clean the… uh… incisions seem, our mysterious attacker must be pretty skilled with whatever they used.”

Carefully observing Vince’s corpse, the most noticeable of them had been a pair of deep stabs, one on his upper chest, and another through his forehead. The other two men displayed similar injuries as well.

They weren’t breathing, naturally. Their lungs had been gravely severed. Their faces were also cold to the touch, and they had no pulse. Even though haema should have made a situation like this one an utter absurdity…

“No doubt about it. These people are not alive.”

***

“It’s really weird, don’t you think?”

“I guess…”

“They were just there! Nobody knows how it even happened!”

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“Uh-huh…”

“Emmy… Are you still listening?” Armetta squinted her eyes.

“I… Yes, of course I’m listening. You were saying they… they found a pair of slippers, no owner, just sitting atop the projector in your classroom. Out of nowhere… Wait, what…?”

“Yeah!”

“And your class’s first instinct was to whip out their phones and start taking photos.”

“Yup, I don’t know why! But I was feeling kinda lost, so I just followed the crowd to try and keep up… Dunno why it was like that, though… But how crazy is that, right?”

“... Yes. It certainly sounds like something that would happen… at a school… I guess…”

“I mean, it’s not every day that you see something so weird happening like that, I needed to keep proof just in case! But would anyone just leave footwear on top of the projector? It’s such a weird thing to happen…”

“One of nature’s mysteries for sure…”

“I know, right? Look here!” said Armetta, showing off her phone’s screen amid some nervous laughter.

Snapping back from her thoughts once again, Emily’s gaze was held by the bizarre image before her for a few moments.

(Huh… She was actually telling the truth. At this point I’ve seen everything.)

“... So then, what did you do? Did you find the owner?”

“No, they just stayed there.”

“... Instead of doing… well, that… couldn’t one of you at least have tried to take them to the ‘lost and found’ or something? It’s not rocket science.”

“I mean, of course I tried to do that! But the smell of sweaty feet was so strong it was spreading through the whole room, it even reached the corridor and the teacher had to cancel the class! I couldn’t do anything, okay?” Armetta replied this time, entirely serious. 

“...”

Emily turned to glance at the ribbon girl for a moment, without saying a word.

“... D-Don’t look at me like that…” she blushed.

“... Why’s your school so weird, Armetta?”

“That’s what I wanted to know!”

“...”

“... There’s something on your mind, isn’t it?”

“W-What…? What do you mean?”

“You usually don’t ignore me like this, Emmy! I mean, you ignore me a little bit less… The point is, you’re weirder than normal today! What’s wrong?”

“Nothing's wrong. You’re just imagining stuff because you don’t have anything better to do.”

The pale girl turned away from her, squinting her eyes into the distance even though the sun was barely even visible by now.

“Hmmm. There you are, frowning again… You look way cuter when you smile, you know that, Emmy?”

“W-What’s that about? I can do whatever I feel like.”

“Sure you can… I was just saying, though. Also, that hoodie hides your face too much. Totally kills your looks…”

“If I take it off, I’ll burn up like a lit match.”

“Right, I forgot. Man, you got a weird skin condition…”

“It’s not that rare. There’s one or two other people in my grade with it too, so stop talking like it’s some curse.” replied the pale girl, annoyed.

“Sorry, sorry. It’s such a waste, though… I don’t know how you can even walk properly with so much hair in your eyes.”

“...”

That exchange confused the pale girl somewhat. Regardless, she figured it would be best not to press the matter further. She was trying to tire Armetta out, not make her talk more.

As they just kept on through the wide, sparsely crowded Suburb Area on that late afternoon, a third party nearby suddenly called out the two girls.

“Excuse me, do you have a minute?”

The voice had come from the side of the walkway, and looking for its source, they saw an old-looking man, probably somewhere in his sixties. He wore a black-colored uniform, with a silver, square-shaped badge attached to his shirt.

Armetta was the first to answer.

“How can we be of help, officer?”

Having given up on speaking herself, Emily silently nodded in agreement. The elderly UDSD officer continued.

“With the mandatory curfew, seeing young people out on the streets at this hour is kind of rare nowadays. I just wanted to make sure you’re heading home right now. We can’t allow children to remain on the streets after the time limit, after all.”

Checking her phone, Emily verified it was already 08:01 P.M.

He was right. The streets in the Suburb were now mostly deserted of students, the few remaining passerby being mostly office workers. The strict curfew from the past few years had made early commuting into a sort of fixed routine. Most minors would usually be home before a half past seven, even.

Two teenagers out there on their own might’ve looked suspicious, to the old guy’s credit.

 “We were just headed there, sir.” spoke Emily from under the hood.

“Do you live very far from here? If you don’t think you could make it in time, we could always send a patrol car to give you kids a ride.”

“No, it’s fine, mister.” Armetta assured him with a smile. “We live pretty close to here, so we can get there on foot. No need to worry!”

“Oh? You’d better not be trying to trick me.” he said grumpily, “We’ve already gotten wise to you kids’ shenanigans.”

“Oh, mister officer! Why would we ever do that?” Armetta laughed, flashing her sparkling white teeth in a grin so wide only a persistent eastern salesman could rival it, “We’ll get home as fast as we can! Right, Emmy?”

“Y-Yeah, right.” she agreed, slightly shook by the second-hand embarrassment.

She wondered whether the ribbon girl was just making fun of the guy, or actually serious, the way she was acting. Knowing her, maybe a bit of both.

“I see, then. I suppose I can leave you to it.” he nodded with a sigh, turning around and resuming his walk, “But please hurry up, yes? It’s getting dark out here.”

The two girls nodded.

Once the elderly officer left, the two girls carried on with their stroll. Despite what he had said, being questioned by an UDSD member even with the sun all out was not rare around Seagate.

Around four dozen allegedly unrelated citizens, ranging from nine to twenty years old, had been reported to mysteriously disappear during the night in the past decade, which had led western UDSD forces to become extremely rigorous when it came to curfew control. One minor let free could easily wind up as another case, therefore security was tightened.

Naturally, she knew these types would be even wearier of having an unintended demographic out on the streets after the previous night’s rather harrowing findings.

One could say the rules of the game had changed even further, in a sense.

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