Chapter 16

Aidan was training with his schoolmates, even though he no longer lived in Zone A. It seemed to me that Aidan wasn't receiving training from ACTS, but rather that he was helping to train the students.

Nadia was out tutoring her juniors because she didn't want to waste the potential of promising young scientists.

As for me, I was doing the opposite of being productive. I sat on the floor, back against the wall, repeating the same name over and over again in my head.

Ad Maiora. It tasted bitter on my tongue.

The secret organization claimed to eye for the same goal as Aidan, which was to find the Green Zone.

Aidan said that Aubin call it 'Arcadia'.

I didn't know what Ad Maiora had, but for Aidan to achieve that purpose was to go out of this country. He'd have to abandon his family here and venture to explore the unknown.

The possibility of Arcadia's existence certainly wasn't zero but was it worth the risk?

I couldn't shake the anxiety I was feeling.

Was Ad Maiora so impoverished and inadequate that they had to resort to recruiting a youth?

I understood how strong Aidan was. He was a well-known superhuman equipped with both brawn and brains. I hated to use my mother's term, but he was like me, no more than a kid--an extraordinary one, but still a kid nonetheless.

Nadia was obviously against the idea.

"Well, you look rather pensive. Are you pondering about something?" Mom emerged from her room.

She took a seat beside me, but at a distance that allowed for personal space.

"What's bothering you?" she asked, her finger lightly tracing the fine hair near my face. Her almond-shaped green eyes focused on me.

I inhaled and exhaled before speaking. "Mom, what was the world like back in your days? When you were a scientist. Was the air already as bad as it is now? Was anything different at all?"

"I lived in Zone A, of course it's completely different."

Same old, same old. There's no changing my mother's answer, which convinced me even more that she was hiding something.

Instead of asking for a description, I change my approach to a simple yes-or-no question.

"Were there any living plants?"

"A plant?"

"Yea, something of the sort."

She squinted and clicked her tongue, creasing the bridge of her pointy nose a little. I had hoped it was a trap question that would yield the answer I wanted, but my mother was smarter than that.

"What are you guys up to now? Tesla, stop thinking of meaningless things like going out or finding the truth. This is the truth. What you're seeing now, what we're living in now, this is our truth."

"Are you sure that this is all there is, Mom?" I asked, trying to hide my disappointment.

"I'm afraid so, Tesla. This is the world we have to work with. And we have to make the best of it." She patted my hand and stood up. "I have work to do. Take care, okay?"

I watched her leave the room, feeling a mix of frustration and sadness.

To be honest, Aidan's belief that there was more to life than just surviving day by day in a polluted and dangerous world was more appealing than accepting this world as was.

"Ugh, this isn't like me. I'm not one to think too hard. I'm all for actions," I murmured as I grabbed my jacket and gas mask.

***

Mom hadn't mentioned anything about the ingredients, but I was being proactive in fetching some. It was the only way I could think of to stay on my feet and divert my thoughts elsewhere.

I went to a water source in Zone E to search for Okaxon. As I walked on the muddy ground, I halted my steps and said, "Come out, whoever you are!"

"Perceptive," the person said under his breath.

A young man in his early twenties appeared before me. His hair was crystal blue from root to end, falling gracefully to his shoulders.

His gas mask was strange. I couldn't see the end of it, and it didn't appear to be connected to any oxygen tank either. That reminded me of the NSS soldiers guarding the wall.

He had a striking face, one you wouldn't forget once you saw it. Remarkable. Not quite the typical handsome like Aidan, but there was something mesmerizing about him.

He was adorned in an all-white suit with a hoodie that partially obscured his face. But I could still see his piercing eyes, delicate nose, and thin lips.

"Where did you get your mask?"

First thing first. I wanted to know how it was possible that this guy and the NSS soldiers didn't seem to use oxygen tanks.

"Not from around here," he answered, standing with his hands behind his back several feet away from me.

"I can see that you're not from around here. Take it off!"

The man tilted his head and asked, "Take what off?"

"Your mask," I replied.

This was just my speculation, and I didn't intend to press this guy further to remove the gas mask if he insisted on keeping it on. But this was the only way to prove my theory.

I had been curious about the NSS officers and their gas masks. The situation back then didn't allow me to delve deeper.

But it was different now.

People were going missing, there were deformed corpses everywhere, Prime Minister Pachis was dead, and there was a possible revolt in the making. A survivor from the outside project. The suspicious HRD-21 thing.

And there was also Ad Maiora.

The chances that the government had been hiding something from us were high now.

Where did they get sources for our food? And the oxygen?

If everything we knew about Genesis had been a lie, then I dared to ask this question:

"Do you somehow find a way to breathe without the mask?"

The young man didn't say anything. He didn't even flinch. He simply looked down. But his silence and the long pause he took to answer my question were enough to tell me that he knew something.

He pursed his lips and contemplated for some seconds.

Not taking his gaze off me, he pulled the edge of his mask and remove it.

I gasped, startled by the unforeseen sight.

Immediately, I assumed a defensive stance. My heart was pounding with fear and curiosity.

"Who... what are you?" I asked in a trembling voice.

"Hello, Miss Iota. It's nice to meet you. I'm Gilliam Park, the Scout from Ad Maiora," he replied, his sharp eyes staring straight at mine.

To be continued...