In the war-torn city, a small team of mercenaries and a "civilian" weaved through the streets under the cover of surrounding buildings. They avoided the hot zone where sporadic gunshots were occasionally heard. Their route seemed to be safe, at least for the time being.
Nolan glanced over her shoulder at the "civilian", who had been carrying the dead blonde girl on his back for quite a distance on foot. He did not fall behind at all. She wondered what fuelled his tenacity. Was it his physical strength, or determination? Or was she to blame it on this troubled world?
"I thought he wouldn't even make it through one kilometre," a mercenary recruit who reclaimed weapons from the dead soldiers whispered to his companion. "Tsk, I lost. I owe you."
His companion muttered, "Speaking of the girl, she looks like a second-generation Evolved. This is the first time I saw a Natural having a relationship with a second-generation Evolved."
Nolan gave the two men a reproving stare. "Shut up and hurry up," she chided.
Meanwhile, Hao Ren, who was seemingly silent, was actually talking with his MDT. The MDT was giving his two cents about the gossip. "In fact, this isn't the first time you get involved in a gossip. Remember the pot in your house, and how Hessiana think about you? You still think you're so innocent?"
The MDT was such an annoyance. Hao Ren did not want to argue with it. "Cut the cackle, would you? You'd better to go and figure out what's wrong with you."
"I've tried. It came up nothing," the MDT was rather frank. "I'm a logical machine, built to run quantifiable data. For intuitive stuff, you should look for Lily—she has an imaginative mind at least."
Hao Ren sighed in his mind. "It's either you had met interference and turned in this image while entering the Plane of Dream, or you're having a walk-in where your thoughts had possessed another person here. Looks like the latter is more probable."
Before the discovery of the Tannagost fissure, they had to enter the Plane of Dream through dream, on which they had conducted many studies. When a spiritual body enters the Plane of Dreams, the physical body remains in the surface world; it would create a phenomenon similar to the avatar like what happened to the MDT here. And the image of avatar is usually dependent on self-cognition. So a schizophrenic person who enters the Plane of Dreams through dreaming might not recognise himself or herself. But Hao Ren did not think that a mobile data terminal was capable of schizophrenic. Even if it could, there was no way the MDT could turn up as a blonde, not to mention a dead one.
Judging from all the above, the chances of a 'walk-in' was more probable. Perhaps the moment the MDT entered this world, the blonde happened to have just died and there happened to be some kind of resonance between the two... Was it not written in the book?
The MDT thought for a moment and said, "It is all speculation. There's no data to back that up. I don't work in a subjective way. All I know is that something is wrong; I'm still unable to perceive thing and move. The body is useless…"
"Nonsense. Putting Windows into your brain and yet you expect it to run properly? You should be already grateful you could still bicker with me." Hao Ren seemed to have more grumble than the MDT had. "Don't even let me begin with the weight that I have to carry on my back! It's not like I can simply shove you in my front pocket or the dimensional pocket in front of so many people…"
No one realised he was talking with the MDT in his mind. Ulyanov turned his head and looked curiously at the man who was 'quiet' along the way. "You were planning to go through the Lawless District into Ground Zero, or Black Street?"
Hao Ren had no idea what the places were. But he also could not appear too ignorant. So he asked back, "What is the situation of the two places?"
"Not places that you would want to go," another mercenary chimed in. "Ground Zero is a little better, and someone is managing the city. Right now, the Evolved are in charge, but the Naturals can still survive but getting in is a problem. Unless you have money or skills, they will find fault with you. But if you can fight, you can join their city guards. Black Street is laxer than Ground Zero; anyone can enter but how long you can survive depends all on your luck. The Naturals and the Evolved have little difference; their lives are cheap in there."
Then Ulyanov added, sounding sullen. "By the way, we 'grey fox' is doing business in Black Street."
"I suggest you go to a Zero City," Nolan said in front without looking back. "You would not survive more than three days in Black Street; your gold will cost your life. But you can hand over all your property to the city management committee in Zero City and in return, you should be able to get the right to live for three years. Three years, you should be able to find a way out then."
Hao Ren tried to digest what he had heard. His mind was outlining the map of power distribution of the nearby area and the status quo of this world. But in Ulyanov's eyes, Hao Ren's silence meant another thing. The soldier patted Hao Ren on the shoulder. "Get a grasp of the reality. After crossing the Grey River, you have to play by the rules."
Nolan suddenly stopped in front. She signalled the mercenaries behind her to be on guard. They quickly hid behind a partly collapsed concrete wall. From behind the ruins, Hao Ren saw a distorted air on the open space not far ahead. He focused his eyes and now he could tell the distorted air was actually a layer of optical disguise.
Nolan half-crawled in the shadow, her hand pressing the comm in her ear as if she was talking with someone. A moment later, she motioned everyone to relax as she stepped out of the shadow and waved into the direction of the open space in front of her.
The optical camouflage above the open space disappeared like a ring of water curtains falling to the ground as a large armoured truck appeared before everyone's eyes. Hao Ren quickly noticed the front of the truck had the same insignia as Nolan had on her uniform. Looks like this was the extraction team.
"Follow me." Nolan gestured with her hand as she moved out in front. Just when Hao Ren was about to get out, battle-hardened intuition suddenly sounded an alarm!
"Ambush!" He and Nolan almost shouted out at in unison. As soon as their shouts trailed off, gunshots were heard!
Bullets flew in from all directions from nearby buildings without warning. The intense gunfire sounded like a torrential rain. The mercenaries had quickly come to their senses and scrambled for cover. Nolan was far too out in the open, no way could she make back up. She clenched her teeth and quickly ran at the armoured truck, looks like she wanted to use the truck as cover.
Hao Ren had put down 'corpse' on his back and was waiting for an opportunity to fight back. At this moment, in the corner of his eyes, he suddenly saw the truck door opened and an arm was sticking out a gun pointing at Nolan.
In a split second, Hao Ren took out a hard object from the dimensional pocket and threw into the direction of the truck, knocking off the pistol. Nolan fired a shot and killed the enemy instantly before she jumped as agile a monkey into the truck. Ear-shattering gunfire and explosions pierced through the air. Judging from the situation, Hao Ren decided to tuck away his psionic gun and plasma spear because they were too eye-catching for the occasion before sneaking out toward a nearby building. Ulyanov shouted from the back. "What are you doing?"
Hao Ren did not reply. He half-crept and then disappeared in the shadow of a building.
A moment later, there was a scream before an enemy sniper was thrown off the top of a building and died instantly.
Hao Ren poked his head out from the edge of the roof as he beckoned to the mercenaries, wondering if this stayed within the limit of what a human should be able to perform...
Ulyanov looked in horror, could not believe that Hao Ren was actually a civilian. At the same time, a sound was heard coming from the open space. The roof of the truck rose up slowly as a truck-mount weapon rose from below. Nolan was standing behind the quad-barrel heavy guns and pointing at the nearby buildings.
Nolan's face lacking emotion as she pressed her finger on the 'fire' button, emptying all the bullets in the quad-barrelled gun into the surrounding building.