Chapter 69: Foresight of the Retreat

"Ding."

The elevator doors opened on the top floor of the building. Click. Some ten soldiers were already positioned outside, training their weapons directly inside, though they looked thoroughly bewildered to find the car completely empty.

"Huh... where’d they go?" one of the soldiers muttered.

Suddenly "bam!" the emergency stairwell door beside the elevator burst open. Five shadows surged forward, and "thud!" "whack!" "boom!" in the blink of an eye, all ten soldiers collapsed onto the floor, completely motionless. Clyde crouched down, checking a soldier’s pulse at his neck. Sigh. Though hidden behind his mask, he was unmistakably overcome with relief.

"Relax, Brother... I only used 0.05% of my strength. There’s no way any of these soldiers are dead," Craig chimed in via telepathy, waving a hand dismissively in front of his own face.

"Yup... same here. Like flicking someone with the barest touch," Corie added casually.

"We know we aren’t supposed to kill them, even if we’re starting to get a bit hungry," Casca noted, glancing sideways at a rather plump, bear-like soldier nearby.

"Kindly remove your gaze from him, Casca... or I’ll get mad," Celes said, resting a hand on Casca’s shoulder.

"Hmph... fine," Casca replied, turning her head away.

"Let’s head up to the penthouse. We need to find an elevator to go higher," Clyde instructed as he stood back up.

"Yeah," Celes, Craig, Casca, and Corie chorused in response.

They then walked past the sprawling bodies of the guards, pressing deeper down the corridor. Pushing through a glass door, they entered what appeared to be a standard office space filled with cubicles, a photocopier, a hallway leading to a conference room, and several partitioned administrative sections. An adjacent corridor branched off toward a pantry, storage room, and an archive. They walked straight through the open office area, passing a scattering of empty desks and computers.

Beyond the office, they spotted a large meeting room enclosed by glass walls lined with drawn blinds, followed by a left-turning corridor ending in a pair of double doors. Clyde glanced back at the others, signaling them to advance toward the double doors. As they reached the middle of the hallway, "click!" a section of the wall suddenly slid open. The five froze instantly, dropping into high alert. A cluster of mini-turrets abruptly popped out and opened fire on them point-blank. Smoke instantly billowed through the corridor, enveloping everything in a thick haze.

"Trrrrr."

Once the barrels of the mini-gatling turrets finally stopped spinning, the hallway fell into an instantaneous hush, leaving thick white smoke hanging in the air. Suddenly "bam!" Corie’s foot smashed into one of the turrets. Then "bam, bam, bam!" she bounced back and forth off the corridor walls, obliterating the remaining turrets and sending them up in explosions. Hop. Corie landed gracefully right back in the center among her siblings.

"All done... let’s keep moving," Corie announced.

"Hmm... security here is tight indeed. No doubt about it, this Silas fellow is definitely behind that door... or the elevator to his level is in there," Clyde reasoned.

"My thoughts exactly," Celes chimed in, looking thoughtful.

"Then what are we waiting for? Let’s barge right in," Casca urged, taking a step forward.

"Thwack."

Craig delivered a sharp chop to Casca’s head, causing her to double over and cup her hands over her skull as she spun around to glare at him.

"Ow... that hurt, you know," Casca complained.

"Don’t you get it? Security here is airtight. There’s already a squad waiting for us inside, and we can’t just storm in blindly," Craig scolded.

"Oh... right," Casca conceded.

Clyde then spread his wings. The eyes patterned across his feathers flared a brilliant crimson as he fell silent for a moment. Celes turned her gaze toward Clyde, watching him closely. When Corie reached out as if to touch Clyde, Celes caught her hand and gave a firm headshake. A second later, Clyde folded his wings back in, turning to face Celes, Corie, Craig, and Casca.

"We’re leaving," Clyde declared.

Hearing Clyde’s announcement, Celes, Craig, Casca, and Corie turned to look at him as if he had suddenly grown a second head. Celes reached up to gently tilt his helmeted head.

"Are you sick?" Celes asked.

"No... I’m not sick. I’ll explain later. Right now, we need to get out of here, hurry," Clyde urged.

Sensing the urgency in Clyde’s mental command, and trusting him implicitly not only because of his foresight but because he had saved them time and time again, Celes, Craig, Casca, and Corie nodded. Without missing a beat, they wheeled around and broke into a sprint. Bursting through the emergency exit door, they raced down the stairwell. As they pounded down the steps,

"Why are we taking the stairs... why not the elevator? What’s actually going on, Brother?" Casca pressed.

"There are three crucial things I saw about the future that I need to explain," Clyde answered.

As they descended, Clyde laid it out: first, hidden cameras had been installed throughout the room to monitor Silas’s activities on behalf of the central government; if the authorities spotted them, they would launch a massive military operation against the city to hunt them down, tearing the place apart just to find them.

Second, if they pushed upward and killed Silas, it would trip a dead-man’s switch designed to detonate the entire building along with the compound where Silas kept his slaves. Third, they needed to rescue the slaves before they were sold off, and afterwards, stay put at the inn because someone would be coming to pick them up.

"Pick us up?" Celes asked.

"Yeah... you don’t know them yet, but I’ll introduce you," Clyde replied, glancing sideways at Celes as she ran beside him.

"Huh? Who on earth is coming to pick us up, Brother?" Craig asked, burning with curiosity.

"Mary and Selma," Clyde answered.

"Wait... seriously? Wow... they came here?" Casca exclaimed.

"Yeah... they’re already on the train," Clyde answered.

"Oh! Does that mean we’re heading back to Safe Haven?" Casca asked.

"I couldn’t see that far ahead. I only saw Mary and Selma coming to fetch us, but not where we’re going next," Clyde replied.

"Hmm... so you said we have to free the people Silas made into slaves before they’re sold off, right? Where are they being kept?" Corie asked.

"The mansion where we first landed. We’re heading there right now, come on, run faster," Clyde urged telepathically with utmost urgency.

"Got it," Celes, Casca, Craig, and Corie replied in unison through their minds.

They kept up their frantic dash down the stairs, eventually bursting out through a side door adjacent to the building. Once outside, Clyde hoisted Casca onto his back while Craig hoisted Corie up to sit on his shoulders. Clyde took off into the air carrying Casca, Celes hovered effortlessly in flight right beside him, and Craig bounded forward in massive, soaring leaps with Corie perched atop him.

***

Meanwhile, inside the penthouse office, Silas watched via the live camera feed as Clyde flew by carrying Casca, Celes glided alongside them, and Craig bounded through the air with Corie on his shoulders. Thud. He slumped back heavily into his plush executive chair, his arms going completely limp as the crushing tension drained from his body, leaving a look of utter relief on his face. He reached across his desk to pick up a cigar, clipped the end, clamped it between his teeth, and lit it while leaning back in relaxed satisfaction.

"Fuuuh!"

He blew a thick cloud of smoke forward, a triumphant grin spreading across his face before he burst out laughing. "Hahaha." He glanced down at the desk, where an open folder lay exposed: on top was an outstanding debt ledger under Oscar’s name, accompanied by a spreadsheet beneath it tracking Oscar’s month-after-month payments, payments that failed to chip away at the principal balance whatsoever and merely nibbled at the towering pile of interest.

His fingers slid the spreadsheet aside to reveal a photograph underneath. It showed Ellie working as a waitress, followed by another snapshot of Ellie walking outdoors with her wings folded behind her and a cheerful expression, and another of her smiling brightly while serving customers in the restaurant. But his eyes weren’t just drinking in Ellie’s face, they roamed greedily over her body. He loosened the belt of his nightrobe, his hand sliding down to grip himself.

She’s going to be mine... once she’s here, I’ll get to play with her every single day, hahaha, he thought to himself.

Just as his hand began a rhythmic up-and-down motion, "bam!" the office door flew open with such violent force that Silas jumped, frantically pulling his robe shut. A male staff member with a pale, ashen face rushed into the room carrying a smartphone on a silver tray.

"B-boss... important call," the staff member stammered, his face bloodless.

"Tch," Silas clicked his tongue in annoyance and snatched up the smartphone. His expression instantly drained of all color. He looked up at the trembling, pale employee still standing before him, swallowed hard, tapped the answer button, and slowly brought the phone to his ear.

"Hello... Governor," Silas greeted with a tremor in his voice.

"Don’t give me that ’hello’... Why did those five individuals just show up at your facility? Where are they right now?" the governor demanded.

Suddenly, the voice call switched to a video feed, startling Silas. Staring at the screen, he saw the stiff, stern-faced visage of a middle-aged human man, flanked by two individuals, a man and a woman, attired in Neo Ark military uniforms. Taking in the governor’s tense expression, Silas suddenly understood: the five intruders who had just attacked him were clearly wanted criminals. A cunning, subtle smirk crept across his face.

"Well, how can I help you, Governor?" Silas asked, completely shedding his earlier panic.