Ronin did try sleeping, but the bombarding noise outside only got worse and worse as the horde passed by. At one point, he feared the poisonous animals would break down the wall. It was only after an hour that he finally dozed off. With how tired he’d been, eventually, even the worry of being eaten by ruddles went away.

  When he woke up again, drearily looking around the room as he did, he let out a breath in relief. The wall had held.

  He checked his implant.

  3 hours...

  In terms of sleep, it wasn't much, but it would have to do. He glanced out the lookout hole in the window. There were still ruddles outside, but what remained of the horde was, well... not a horde.

  There shouldn't be more than 20 of them out there...

  He could deal with that.

  Groaning, Ronin rose up from the couch, then stretched as he prepared himself for the Kalvrakian embrace. One session wouldn’t do much for his injuries, but he’d take any little advantage he could get right now.

  Lowering his legs into a deep stance, Ronin harmonized his breathing, then closed his eyes as he imagined the energy flowing through him… He only got halfway through the first stance before deep pain flamed up from his left shoulder, almost breaking his concentration.

  He pushed through it.

  Reaching the 2nd stance, his entire body hurt. He was nauseous, dizzy and he felt like he was about to explode. But… he could do this to. He held the stance until he felt the heavier energy fill him completely, then switched to the 3rd stance. Switched for 2 seconds that is.

  Well, there's no way I'm doing that again, Ronin sighed. Those two seconds had almost caused him to black out. Evidently, he was still too injured to be pushing himself.

  Stumbling over to the barricade, he began removing the furniture. The longer he stayed cooped up in here, the higher the danger. They were still out there — the ones hunting him. Though this old part of the city was dark, there were ways to deal with that. There were ways to deal with the terrain as well.

  No, he thought. I have to get to the planetary guard station first.

  He could think of healing his injuries later.

  After throwing away the last chair from the door, he exited the building, kicked a ruddle out of the way, dodged a tongue-lash from yet another ruddle, then jumped onto a not-so-rusty steel beam.

  It was time to head for the silo complex. Past it, if he could find his way back into the sewers again, he’d be right under the planetary guard.

  Garnic furrowed his brows as he looked over the display. 62 members had ended up either dying or getting injured to the point of having to remain behind. The horde had taken them by surprise and the result?

  Devastating.

  The pale skinned rodents had not only eaten several of his men; they'd infected the ones that survived. With the number of diseases these ruddles carried, his men needed medical attention immediately.

  One of the few green dots still denoting his teams, blinked.

  [This is team 9, over,] a male voice whispered over the intercom.

  [Copy that, go ahead,] Garnic replied.

  [We’ve got eyes on the target.]

  Garnic was stunned. Had he finally gotten a break for once? He had to make sure.

  [What's his heading? Can you transmit over a spectral image?]

  He waited the agonizingly long seconds for the image capture and the following transfer to happen, before a ping finally signaled a successful delivery.

  He glanced over the image. There it was, in all its glory — the target.

  [He’s heading towards what looks like a silo complex. Do you want our team to intercept?]

  [Negative.] Garnic wanted to make sure this time. He broadcast the next message to everyone:

  [All teams form up. We will all be intercepting the target this time.]

  They were over 40 people. They knew his location, where he was headed, and they were faster. There would be no more miraculous escape this time. This day Ronin would die!

  As the "target" was making its way towards the silo complex, the academy suit began beeping. No... it was not low on energy. Instead of the softer quieter type of alarm, hard, loud, continuous beeps blasted Ronin's ears.

  A radiation warning!? Startled, he used his Uninet implant, then pulled up his suit's display.

  There were horror stories aplenty of instances where people got sick, died early or mutated, unaware they were being irradiated every day they went to work. If the academy suit had gone so far as to warn him, it had to be bad.

  Eizenshaft radiation… Ronin remarked as he saw the display. This is the radiation Raverus Ravent spoke of earlier today.

  He didn’t need his memory palace for this. Ronin knew exactly how dangerous this radiation was.

  Rated as one of the more lethal types, this exogeneous energy was virtually unstoppable, passed through almost everything and acted swiftly. The textbooks got oddly vague on the specifics, but they claimed the radiation first caused hair loss, then death. No textbook explained where this energy came from, but they were all clear on one thing: If you got exposed to it, you had to leave immediately, and if you couldn’t, you should inform your superiors.

  It was enough for Ronin.

  He looked at the rising radiation values as he closed in on the silo complex… At this rate he wouldn’t even make it across before his hair was gone.

  A detour it is then, he thought.

  He glanced around for an alternate path out, but as he did, he got the eerie feeling that he was being watched. Looking closer, he spotted them.

  There were five men out there, following him.

  So, they found me… Wait, if they already know where I am and haven't attacked yet... could it be that they're planning an ambush? If so...

  Perhaps if he moved close enough to the silo complex, his pursuers would use it as an ambush site. It did look like a good place for such a thing after all. Lots of cover, tall structures, a wide field of vision. Also, radiation detection was a specialized addon normally only used in lab suits. What were the chances they had something like that?

  This might actually work.

  Picking up a pipe, he used it to slide down a wire leading towards another building. He had to be fast, but not too fast. He also had to be close enough to the silo complex for them to set up the ambush there, but for him to remain safe. This would require some finesse…

  “…”

  Moving around the more rusty structures, Ronin climbed down buildings and balanced along beams. It took him the better part of an hour, but he’d made it.

  Now walking on solid ground, he was but 500 meters away from the silo complex. It was as close as he dared go. Just taking a few steps closer to the complex had caused his suit’s alarm to go haywire. He could only imagine how high the radiation was further in.

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  It had worked though.

  His hunters had taken the bait. Five men were still stalking him from behind, but ahead? Dozens lay in wait — right in the middle of the radiation zone.

  After some careful scouting, he'd chosen a path leading to a long trench in between two rails. It wasn’t deep enough to be noticed, but it was deep enough to shield him.

  As he closed in on the trench though, the act of pretending not to be smack dab in the middle of several sniper scopes, became harder and harder. When would they begin the ambush? Was it after his next step, or maybe the 8 steps after that? Maybe they already knew of the trench and that he was aiming for it? Perhaps him reaching it... was never an option to begin with.

  Step after step, he did his best to walk like someone unaware of what was happening. However, by the time the trench was only 10 meters away, the nerves got to him.

  He found a solid groove in the ground, then pretended to fall as he crouched his legs. And just as his nose was about to touch the ground, he activated his jetpack then kicked off with all he had!

  Brilliant red lines of light flashed, and Ronin felt himself burn.

  “Arrgh!” He groaned.

  He’d been hit, and more than once.

  Crashing back down onto the ground, he gasped for breath. He was in the trench now... he was alive — that was all that mattered. Trying to ignore the pain, he crawled ahead.

  “Did we get him!?” One of the men shouted.

  “I nicked him! I nicked him good!” A gruff voice cheered.

  Amidst the laser fire, a commanding voice broke through the noise: “Team 21 and 10, come with me! The target jumped into a channel of some kind. Let's go boys, it's time to confirm the kill!”

  Ronin inwardly cursed. That’s the man who talked in the sewers earlier… that blasted whistler!

  Hopefully the radiation would do something soon. If they made their way over to the trench, he was a dead man.

  He continued crawling as burning rays broke through his cover. Parts of the trench began melting, and he had to climb around molten sludge a couple of times, nearly getting shot in the process.

  Then... the flashes of light, stopped.

  Are they letting up for the whistler to come and confirm the kill? Or… could it be?

  That was when he heard it. Among the shouts coming from the silo complex, there was now something else as well. Discordant screams of sheer panic began intermixing with the noise.

  Finally!

  Ronin allowed himself a quick glance over the trench.

  ROAR!

  His ambushers were in complete chaos. He noticed one man with an inhumanly large mouth, bite through the leg of another. One man looked like an extreme version of a hunchback and had claws growing out of his hands. Another man had mutated to the point that he’d shrunk to half his original size. His head moved around so fast, he seemed to be moving through time differently. As the twitching head locked onto a new target, the short mutant's entire body began shaking with excitement as with inhuman speed, it ran, attacking another team member.

  At this point, the only commonality shared by his ambushers was their lack of hair.

  It had all happened so fast. Before Ronin jumped into the trench everything had seemed normal.

  Now I understand why the textbooks said you should inform your superiors if you can't leave the radiation zone... It's so they can remove the threat before you mutate.

  He shuddered.

  The warning signal still ringing from his suit, promised a similar ominous fate should he linger. He was still being affected by the same thing that turned those men into monsters. Ronin glanced back, noticing the five men that had been tailing him, running away. He should probably do that as well.

  “...”

  Ronin scrambled away from the silo complex as fast as his legs could take him. Fortunately, he wasn't followed. He could still hear roars and shrieks behind him though. Turns out, Eizenshaft radiation made people rather lively when it took hold.

  Reaching a skyscraper just below the planetary guard station, he began climbing. The building had several of its stairs missing, but his jetpack solved that problem.

  How long has it been since the ambush? 30 minutes? An hour?

  Regardless, all he really needed now was an access point — another door to pry open and he'd be safe.

  Spotting an irregularity about 40 meters further up, he headed for it. The faster he got out of here, the better. His hunters had seemed completely unaware of what was happening to them, right up until they suddenly mutated. The radiation scanner showed that he was out of danger, but this whole section of the city had been closed off for a reason. Ronin was pretty sure this radiation was why.

  He brought his right hand up and ruffled his hair. Some of his hair fell off. Was it the normal amount? Or was it a little bit more than normal?

  I'll go crazy if I keep thinking about this, he thought, shaking his head.

  Firing off the jetpack, he reached the irregularity, then gently stroked his fingers over the metal. He could feel the weld.

  Jackpot!

  “...”

  After a lot of hard work, troubleshooting and inward cursing later, Ronin was back in the sewers. He pinged his implant, then scanned his body.

  This was bad.

  One laser round had barely grazed him, but the right side of his left thigh was toast. The wound reached almost halfway through his leg. Noticing his access to the Concordia net being back up, Ronin sent Nagata a message, informing him of his situation.

  Just in case, he thought, then climbed out of a nearby manhole.

  Back on the streets of Ironglades, Ronin stumbled around like a drug-ridden hermadvorf. People avoided him, giving him looks of caution as they walked by. He’d apparently gone beyond just looking injured — now he scared people.

  Finally reaching the station, he reached out to the first officer he saw. Dressed in the formal black and yellow uniform custom to the Planetary Guard, the man wore an arrogant expression. That arrogance quickly turned to disgust though when he saw Ronin.

  “Uaghhhrrr….”

  “There's no food here, begone!” The officer shouted.

  Ronin focused, then tried again:

  “Whualp…COUGH! Help…”

  To make it clear he was not some lost, bewildered drug fiend, Ronin used his implant to send the man a message. In it, he listed his personal information as well as a description of the attack on his apartment.

  About to shoo him away again, the officer stopped as he saw the message.

  “You… were involved in the attack on district 91?”

  “Attacked…Cough!... I was attacked, yes,” replied Ronin.

  The officer froze up — likely communicating with his superiors — then nodded.

  “Well… that makes things very different kid. We've been looking for someone like you,” he said, then gestured for Ronin to follow.

  As Ronin entered the station, there was a strange mood in the air, but he paid it no mind. Right now, he was more focused on his injuries and what the Eizenshaft radiation might have done. He followed the officer along a corridor, then into a cramped room. The chair in the room was bolted into the floor and there were handcuffs chained to the table. Alarmed, Ronin looked back at the officer.

  “Sit down,” the man said.

  “Sir, I was attacked, my home was blown up. I'm injured!”

  The officer's face became hard, and his voice turned commanding: “Sit, you will be questioned later.” He then placed a hand on his lasgun. “Are you resisting arrest?”

  Past the officer’s shoulder, Ronin noticed two more men behind him. They also reached for their weapons.

  “No no no, I just don’t see why I’m being treated like this when I’m the victim here?” He said as he quickly sat down.

  Still in shock, he watched as the officer, without saying a word, cuffed him to the table then left the room.

  “...”

  It took hours, but not a soul came to visit. Nobody called, in fact, all forms of transmission had been blocked. Either this room had some form of dampening field, or the handcuffs contained something which blocked electronics.

  As his thoughts kept wandering, the door opened, and a professional-looking man came in. Pulling up his sleeves, the man sat down then fixed Ronin with a glare.

  “Ronin Maximus… where were you today?” he asked.

  This was all wrong…

  "I came to seek protection, I was attacked! You can’t do this!" Ronin argued.

  "Kid… over a hundred people are dead. So, let me remind you of your rights — you don’t have any. You have no right to legal counsel, no right to remain silent, we can lock you up for as long as we want, and it shouldn’t be that surprising, right? Considering what you did."

  “I didn’t do it! That's why I came here, I'm running from the ones who did!”

  "And where are these people that have been chasing you now?" The man asked, leaning forward.

  “I escaped into the sewerage but got surrounded. To escape, I had to break through an old door, into a dark abandoned part of the city. The men followed me, but I managed to lose them.”

  Ronin knew the moment he said it. There was no way they’d believe that.

  "So… Let me get this straight. You were not only hunted by multiple people, but you also discovered an ancient and forgotten city!?" The man paused, his eyes piercing into Ronin's.

  "This is your evidence for not having done it? We already know you did it, Ronin! Not only did we discover that the explosion was triggered from your apartment; we also have more than enough eyewitness testimony to put you away for life. The only thing I want to know is why. That's the only reason you are still here and not in a cage right now."

  There was no way Ronin would admit to something he didn’t do. Should he break out? No. He might be stronger now and know how to fight, but he couldn’t fight the government.

  Besides, he did have an alibi! The evidence for him not having done it was the fact that when his attackers placed the explosives, he’d been at the academy.

  “Listen, the moment I arrived from the Ironglades Space-Force Academy, the explosives went off! They must have installed them after I went to class,” Ronin defended himself.

  “We have multiple eyewitnesses claiming otherwise. I will let you in on a secret. I’ve been in this line of work for a long time, and I know a guilty person when I see them. Do you dislike the government? Many do. It’s understandable if you want to make a political statement. This is your chance, your moment; you can talk now. We’re all listening.”

  The back-and-forth game continued. The interrogator tried playing to Ronin's sense of justice, revenge, his empathy. He played the understanding and concerned friend, he screamed and shouted, he showed images of the victims, but Ronin stuck to his story.

  Eventually they must have given up, because the next thing Ronin knew, they'd placed a black bag over his head, then thrown him into a spaceship.