Chapter 11: Chapter 11 – Under the Earth

If there was one thing you couldn’t do in a subway, it was to chat with a dead radio host about the distant past of your terrorist parents, or about his death. Ears everywhere that could belong to the wrong people or the beings of a different species. So they kept silent. Almost.

As she walked down the stairs to the station, bracing herself against the railing with each step, she heard it. A familiar melody. It was playing in the background of a radio announcement. "All of us at CCR mourn the loss of our colleague and friend Aki. This was your first song, buddy, may it accompany you on your final journey." The volume went up as the moderation finished and the opening of the song, which had been on repeat before, now played in its entirety.

It was a song that, to an unknowing listener, might have seemed heavy and depressing. Slowly and mournfully, the music drifted through the hall of the subway station, and it was as if all the passersby were listening in awe. For Wave, however, it was far more than a sad song. It was the song that had carried her through her first difficult time of loneliness here in Citadel City. She hummed along with the melody. If the song had had any lyrics, she would have even sung along, loud and clear, not caring what any of the people in the station thought of her.

Aki had been with her from the very beginning. And now they were together on the run from Akimoto’s staff. This similarity of names was strange. When she could talk to him again, she would ask him about it. But that would have been too crazy, too, if all that happened because of his name. Akimoto Robotics had nothing to do with CCR, as far as she knew. No, that company was a robotics manufacturer and operator of the Arena. Hammer worked for them. He designed new body parts and oversaw the development of prototypes until the first batch shipped. She sent a picture of these employees to Hammer. Maybe he had an idea who they were.

Wave took a breath and looked around the station. Nothing suspicious. The advertisements on the walls and the hull of the subway that just entered the station, squeaking, wanted her tell her all the things her life lacked before she could be truly happy. Ineffectual with her, of course. She had never really become a part of this society. She didn’t fit in with all those dolls around her, wearing their digital masks. Beneath their shining surfaces there were only tired and unhappy faces, Wave was sure of it. She could take out her lens and the illusion would fade away. Advertisements and artwork would disappear and the world would show its true face. But did she really want to see that?

She squeezed into the stream of passengers flowing through the open doors of the train and found a place to stand near the door. Staring out into the tunnels through which they traveled. Even those where filled with the ads of the channels and corporations.

An icon flashed at the edge of her field of vision. A new message by Hammer. "Sorry, I can’t imagine them really working at Akimoto. Ai is a woman of principles."

Ai Akimoto, she was the founder of the company. Once the city consisted only of the Citadel that formed its center. In the year Zero, when it was clear that the world was somehow safe again, all those who suffered from the social system of that time and who were able to escape fled outside. Others rebelled against the bad conditions. Both resulted in a shortage of cheap labor. The prosperity of the rich was in danger and the middle class threatened to become the new lower class. Prospect of even more unrest.

The Kanter Group then had the idea of having robots take their place. They pulled robot documentation out of the archives, dug up old blueprints and awakened robot experts from their cryosleep. They had never needed them before, and so they were stored, along with an estimated other million human icicles, somewhere deep in the Citadel.

Ai was one of them. She was the one who really made robotics successful until it came to a fight with Kanter and she went her own way. She founded her own company and overtook Kanter. A model career, so to speak.

Clearly, Hammer didn’t want to hear that his employer might play dirty. Wave sighed. This was going to be a great team talk. Aki, meanwhile, was humming his own song and Wave, who had forgotten it, lost in her thoughts, joined in again. It made her happy to hear that song, even if her hardest time was associated with it.

The longer the ride went on, the more exhausting it became for Wave. The wagon became more crowded. Newly boarded passengers were trying to fill every last inch, and it was worse than being squeezed into a herd of brontodons. At least she could have climbed on their backs. Further up the neck and on top of their heads enjoying the fresh air of the wilderness. The digital masks, unfortunately, did not cover the smell of the people pressing against her. Well, if she was honest, they smelled no worse than she did, after that chase just now. Still ...

After half an eternity, the navigation system showed her that she had to get out at the next station. Finally! She had to fight her way out, apologized probably a hundred times, then she was outside and sucked in the fresh air. Not as good as in the outside world, but better than nothing.

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