Chapter 449
“I want your help in purging our city of the Ravage Contamination,” the Commander declared.
“Are you serious?” Jake asked.
“I am.”
“Hold on,” Catalina said. “Is this even possible?”
“Actually, it is,” the Commander replied.
“And you want to clear every corner of this city free from contamination for you?” Jake asked.
“I said help us,” the Commander clarified, “not do all the work for us.”
Catalina still couldn’t get over what she had just heard. “Do you really an the Ravage Contamination can be defeated?”
“I believe I already answered that,” the Commander said, his voice terse. “But of course, it’s not an easy task, as you can imagine.”
“But it is possible?” Catalina pressed. “Even though the contamination has reached the final stage of developnt in your city?”
“Yes,” the Commander said confidently.
Jake and Catalina stared at him in silence for a mont, his face showing no emotion whatsoever, hers betraying a flicker of hope.
The Commander’s gaze darted between them before settling on Jake. He must have misinterpreted Jake’s mood as skepticism, because he said, “We’ve been battling the Ravage for a while now and have actually managed to clear so sections of the city from the contamination.”
Catalina spoke up, “While we were in your city, we didn’t notice any cleared-out areas. Everywhere we looked was covered in thick masses of that organic plague.”
The Commander regarded her as though she were a child who had just said sothing very stupid. “Tell sothing. How long were you in our city? From the mont you crossed the wall to when you entered the subway with Silvia’s group?”
Catalina’s brow furrowed as she searched her mory.
“Almost two hours,” Jake replied.
The Commander looked at him as if he were joking. “You managed to stay in the streets for the whole two hours? Really?”
“What surprises you?” Catalina asked.
“When I dispatch a group of people out there, I always give them tasks they can complete quickly so they don’t have to linger in the streets for longer than twenty minutes. The longer you are exposed, the more ravagespawn you attract, and the fewer chances you have of staying alive.”
“Jake dealt with most of the ravagespawn we ca across,” Catalina said. “Without him, I wouldn’t have lasted long in this city. And it’s not like we spent the entire ti above ground. At one point, we descended into the subway and traveled through it for a while before erging into the open where we encountered Silvia and her people.”
“I see,” the Commander said. “That’s how we operate as well. The subway is huge, spanning the entire city. When we need to reach a particular location, we use the subway system to get as close as possible to our destination before erging so that we spend as little ti in the streets as we can. After completing the task, we imdiately get back to the subway.”
“That’s smart,” Catalina said.
“The ravagespawn never descend into the subway on their own, only when chasing us,” the Commander continued. “And sotis, even those chasing us stop in their tracks the mont we disappear into it.”
“Do you know why they act this way?” Catalina asked. “What keeps them from following humans into the subway?”
“I got no idea. We never figured that out. Maybe that’s just how the System designed them to work. Anyway, how long did you fly after going over the wall before your helicopter was brought down?”
“We were shot down almost imdiately after entering your city.”
“I see. So, can you tell how much ti you spent in our city in the actual streets, without counting the ti you spent in the subway?”
“About thirty minutes,” Jake replied.
The Commander nodded, a satisfied look crossing his face as if confirming his own thoughts.
“That sounds about right,” he said. “You were out in the open for only half an hour, mostly on foot, so you caught the tiniest glimpse of our city.” He pointed toward a spot on the map in the east-north area. “I don’t suppose you visited this site?”
Catalina struggled to reply, but Jake’s sharp mind had already morized the entire layout of the city and even mapped the route he and Catalina had taken through Dead City, from the mont they flew over the wall to the mont they reached the Spartans’ base.
“No,” he replied. “It’s too far from our entry point into the city.”
The Commander nodded. “Figures. If you’d reached this spot, you would’ve noticed sothing that stood out from its surroundings.”
The Commander made a theatrical pause. When he didn’t imdiately continue, Catalina prompted, “What? What would we have noticed?”
“A spot we cleared of the Ravage,” the Commander said. “A nest, to be exact. We destroyed it, and the Ravage in that area completely disappeared. Now there’s just an empty high-rise building with a clear area around it, entirely free of the Ravage.”
“What about the contaminated areas around that building?” Jake asked. “Doesn’t the Ravage from the surrounding sections try to reclaim the spot you cleared?”
“Nope. That doesn’t happen. The building and the imdiate area around it are completely devoid of the Ravage now, and the contamination simply can’t spread back into that zone. But don’t ask why. I don’t know. Perhaps it’s just how the System works.
“By the way, that’s one of the reasons I sent Silvia’s group out into the streets an hour ago: to check one of the nests we’d destroyed a while back and make sure it hadn’t been taken back by the Ravage.
“So, for the System, it’s just a ga, so everything in our world now is dictated by strange, video ga-like rules. I’ve stopped questioning why things happen one way or another in this altered world a long ti ago.”
Catalina nodded her agreent.
“That’s not the only area we’ve cleared of the Ravage, not the only nest we’ve destroyed,” the Commander said. “There are several such spots now.”
“So how did you manage that?” Catalina asked. “How do you destroy a nest? Are your weapons really that powerful? And what exactly is a ‘nest’?”
“I’m sure you have a lot of questions about that, and I’ll tell you what a nest is and how to destroy it, but a little later. Before we get to that, I need to clarify a few other points. First of all, I need to explain sothing about the Ravage Contamination itself. From what we’ve gathered, it appears to be the final challenge of Stage II that the System throws at you.
“As we all already know, every city undergoes several stages of transformation. At Stage I, mutants are relatively weak. At Stage II, they beco stronger, and more powerful types are introduced. Then the Ravage Contamination appears, which seems to be the ultimate challenge of Stage II. Based on our research, once the Ravage Contamination is destroyed, the city transitions into the final Stage III.”
“What makes you think Stage III is final?” Jake asked.
“Because it seems logical, but of course, we don’t know anything for sure. We’re learning about this altered world as we go. So believe the appearance of the Ravage Contamination marks the beginning of Stage III rather than its conclusion. Others, the most optimistic, think the Ravage Contamination is the final challenge the System throws at you, and that once it’s defeated, a city stops transforming and stops becoming dangerous. And there are those who, perhaps more out of wishful thinking than reason, believe that once the Ravage is defeated, all monsters will vanish entirely, giving people a chance to live peacefully, without having to fight creatures every day simply to survive.”
Catalina didn’t say anything, but her expression spoke louder than words.
“I see you’re doubtful about that,” the Commander said. “It’s completely understandable. I, too, am not quite as optimistic as so of my people. But I don’t discourage them from such hopes. After all, they need to believe in sothing like that. Without it, they would have trouble simply getting through the day.”
“So what’s the problem?” Jake asked. “If you’ve already destroyed several nests, why can’t you destroy the rest? Why do you need my help at all?”
The Commander’s expression darkened. “Because,” he began, “when a nest falls, a Titan erges.”
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