Chapter 454

Chapter 454

Jake began to move away, but Catalina suddenly paused and turned back to the Commander.

“One more thing,” she said. “Since I’m stuck in your city for now, is there a way to contact my people so I can let them know I’m alright?”

“Yeah, just use our comm unit,” the Commander replied. “Ask Silvia to lead you to it.”

Jake continued walking away from them, but he could still hear every word they said.

“Is there anything else?” he heard the Commander ask, noticing that Catalina hadn’t moved. Jake didn’t look back, but since he heard no footsteps following him, it was clear she remained in place.

Jake came to a halt and glanced back toward Catalina and the Commander, listening in on their conversation.

“I just realized something,” Catalina said. “You mentioned it would take a few days for us to clear your city of the Ravage. But what if, by that time, our own city will have been completely swallowed by the plague?”

“Highly unlikely,” the Commander replied.

“Why do you think so?”

“How much of your city’s area has the Ravage taken so far?” he asked.

“About seventy percent,” she replied.

“Then you have nothing to worry about yet.”

“How so?”

“You’ve probably noticed yourself that, when the Ravage first appears, it spreads very quickly, infesting one street after another.”

Catalina nodded. “That’s right.”

“The Ravage in your city should’ve already slowed its spread,” the Commander said. “At least, that’s how it was in our city, and I have no reason to believe it’s different in yours. After infesting about seventy percent of a city, the Ravage slows down significantly. I think the System intentionally designed it this way so survivors could properly prepare. So, it should be a few weeks before the Ravage takes the rest of your city. So, like I said, if everything goes smoothly, we’ll be done here in just a few days, and, most likely, when you return to your city, you probably won’t notice much difference from before you left.”

Catalina thanked him for the explanation and hurried after Jake.

“Thanks for waiting for me,” she said, coming to a stop beside him.

They began to move across the cavern together. Once they were out of the Commander’s hearing range, Catalina whispered, “I don’t trust him, Jake. I think he lied to us about what really happened between him and Mick.”

“My thoughts exactly,” he replied.

“I think you should look for that person when you leave the base.”

“I will.”

“And maybe I should go with you,” she added. “I’m not even sure I should trust these people anymore. I’ve realized I don’t actually know them at all. Maybe I’d be safer with you out there.”

“Absolutely not,” Jake said. “You’ll definitely be safer with them down here than with me on the streets.”

He looked around, studying the Spartans. While he couldn’t access their memories with

Mind Reader

, one of the upgrades for his

Enhanced Intelligence

skill allowed him to check the moods, and even potential intentions, of nearby humans. Making use of this perk, he discovered that although the Spartans didn’t like him, which was obvious even without the perk, they felt no hostility toward Catalina at all.

He glanced at her and said, “They mean you no harm. You’ll be safe with them.”

“How do you know?” she asked.

“I just know. Trust me, you’re better off here. You should stay here instead of going with me.”

Besides, you’ll be nothing but a liability to me out in the open,

he added silently to himself.

“Alright,” she conceded. “If you say so.”

For a moment, they were silent. Then Catalina turned her head to look at Jake again. “So, we just learned about D. Looks like you’re not the only one of your kind. There are others like you.”

Jake simply nodded, lost in thought.

“Are you excited about that?” she asked.

He didn’t reply. He wasn’t sure how he felt. If what the Commander had told them was true, it meant that after evolving into the Devastator, D began to lose his humanity. After evolving for the third time into the Corruptor, Jake himself had been able to find some kind of balance between his human and monster sides. As for D, he seemed to have been unable to resist his dark urges, which, as Jake knew from personal experience, were especially intense during the first days after evolving into Stage III. Now, D had to be more monster than human, perhaps even a complete monster with no humanity left in him at all. Siding with such a being would be absolutely impossible, for sure. The Commander was right about that.

But something didn’t feel right about the Commander’s story. From personal experience, Jake knew that the chances of surviving the Dark Void, the anomaly that had turned him into a mutant, were slim to none. It was a miracle that he had survived and become a morphus instead of dying. But what were the odds that two such miracles could happen to two different people?

Either it was just an incredible stroke of luck or there was something else going on. Jake knew he’d been fortunate to be transformed into a morphus, but as for D, only time would tell whether the Commander had told them the truth or was hiding someone from them. For now, Jake decided to let it slide.

“Do you think he got turned just like you?” Catalina asked, pulling him back to reality. “An anomaly pulled him in and turned him into what he is now?”

“Probably,” Jake replied, offering nothing more. The only known way he was aware of to become a mutant was through a Dark Anomaly, which was extremely rare. He had encountered it only once, and D must have as well. If there was any other way to become a morphus, Jake didn’t know it.

For a moment, they fell silent again. Jake was still thinking about D. He remembered that when he had needed to choose one of the three subclasses to evolve into, he had been shown a brief vision of each. He recalled seeing a Devastator battling creatures crawling from a huge chasm somewhere in the Scarlands. Those creatures looked similar to the ones Jake had been developing. He remembered thinking that perhaps that vision was a preview of future events, hinting that he might encounter another morphus at some point and fight them.

Now that he thought about it, he also couldn’t help but remember how the Devastator in the vision had defeated the creatures and leapt down into the chasm they’d emerged from. Jake had built his Apex Hollow deep underground, accessible only through a chasm not unlike the one from the vision. The parallel was unsettling, and it sparked the thought that he and D could become enemies and if D would eventually find and infiltrate his Apex Hollow.

He also couldn’t help but remember that the Commander had mentioned D could view their memories, meaning D possessed

Mind Reader

. The ability was Uncommon, one step above Common rarity. However, it wasn’t a standard ability, meaning it wasn’t initially available in the

Genetic Development Interface

. It was one of the abilities that got added to the skill store as a reward for completing various quests or challenges. Jake had earned this ability after completing a mutation research task, so it seemed D had completed the same quest a long time ago.

According to the Commander, D had never found a way to speak. Jake’s ability to communicate, on the other hand, came from

Morph Disguise

. Unlike

Mind Reader

,

Morph Disguise

was Epic and therefore much rarer and harder to come across. Unlike Ravager, one of the three subclasses, both Corruptor and Devastator were compatible with this ability, but D apparently had never acquired it, considering he couldn’t speak.

On the other hand, while

Morph Disguise

was a rare ability, D had been around somewhat longer than Jake, meaning he’d had more time to discover it at some point. So, perhaps, he actually possessed this ability, and perhaps, he had simply never considered using it to develop a rudimentary voice box and speak via an electrolarynx like Jake did.

If that were the case, could D be somewhere in the cavern right now, disguised as a human?

But Jake dismissed this notion almost immediately. To assume the identity of a specific human, a morphus first needed to view their memories with

Mind Reader

. The Spartans, however, were somehow shielded from having their memories accessed. It was also of no use to pretend to be just some random human, since the Spartans could identify one another at a glance. They had fought side by side for months, and with so few members in their ranks, any unfamiliar face would stand out instantly.

Another thing Jake kept thinking about was the fact that the Commander seemed all too glad to move on from the subject of D. The moment the Commander started talking about the Ravage Contamination and how to defeat it, he never mentioned D again, almost as if he had completely forgotten about his existence.

At first, Jake hadn’t given it much thought, as he was focused on the topic of the Ravage Contamination. However, now that he was thinking back, he couldn’t help but realize that the Commander seemed happy not to talk about D anymore. Jake even began to suspect that the Commander had never truly intended for him to hunt D down. It felt as though he had simply been distracting Jake from something else.

Jake didn’t know what it all meant, but he was determined to start looking for D. Once he was exploring Dead City on his own, free from human company, he would give it his all to find him. But first, he planned to search for Mad Mick.

In his peripheral vision, he caught sight of Silvia emerging from one of the tunnels leading into the cavern. He couldn’t help but wonder where she had been and what she had been doing.

“Silvia’s here,” he said to Catalina.

She followed the direction of his gaze and nodded. “Guess I’d better go catch up with her before she heads off again.”

“You do that.”

She looked up at him. “Well, see you in the morning then.”

“Yes.”

Without saying anything else, he turned and moved away from Catalina. As he jogged across the cavern, he noticed the Spartans tracking his movements with suspicious eyes. Ignoring them, he continued running until he entered one of the tunnels.

For a while, he navigated the maze of natural underground passages until he found his way into the subway. From there, he made his way up to the surface. Once in the night streets, he paused to consult his mental map of Dead City. Then, he turned toward the meeting location Mad Mick had given to Catalina’s people and set off.