Chapter 190 - Uprising

Niko grunted as he was tossed into a derelict makeshift cell featuring an arctech boiler, his wrist and ankles tied up by ropes. Damian was placed opposite, both of them locked behind grilles as the young leader of the thugs grinned at them.

“Still don’t remember me? Not a problem. I’ll make sure you remember my face for the rest of your life, given time.” The young guy chuckled as he left the two of them alone in the basement of an unknown building, the pained gasps of the both of them accentuating the smell of rotting corpses, prisoners long passed away.

The two of them had been stripped of their armour, wounds and lacerations covering their bodies that scrapped against the cold, barren concrete floor covered with algae feeding off the ambient light of the churning arctech boiler’s engravings, a dark red hue dominating the scene.

They were far from the only ones in the basement; a few other unconscious thugs were also imprisoned and left to rot. Damian and Niko kept silent as a prison guard walked past them, the guard taking a seat at the end of the hallway. The guard’s clothes were hardly a uniform – the gang insignias did not match any of the other thugs Damian and Niko had seen before.

Niko wanted to speak, but Damian made a hushing expression on his face, indicating with his brows to wait for the guard to be distracted. Sure enough, after two hours, the guard was already dozing off, his snores gently punctuating the din of the boiler’s churn.

As soon as Damian confirmed the guard was fast asleep, he tapped the metal grill slightly, drawing Niko’s attention. “..Who was that..?” Damian muttered, unable to pinpoint who exactly it was. A remnant of the Ilysian Punks? An Ardent Cretin fighter?

However, Niko knew precisely who it was. Him again? I thought the fucker was dead or conscripted to war!A tingle of fear shot down his spine as he recalled the first gang fight he had witnessed at the Lusty Arcian before joining the Seven Snakes. “It’s Lionel.” He whispered with a tinge of anger.

“Who?”

“One of the fighters from the Red Lions. We fought him in the early days.”

“Early days? Like three years ago?”

“Not your early days, idiot. Mine! It was Kyle’s first fight with the Red Lions!” Niko retorted angrily, though in hushed tones.

Damian furrowed his brows, trying to recall such a name. However, they had been involved in so many fights over the months that his memories were like a mud swamp, unable to get a handle on who exactly it was. How many others had fallen before them, not even leaving a name to remember?

“Well, I don’t blame you.” Niko shrugged. “Dude was a small fry, nothing worth mentioning nor remembering.”

“If he’s such a small fry, then he should know fucking with us or even the Tul’e Da’li is a death sentence!” Damian retorted. “What does he have that is getting all those thugs to follow him? Money?”

Niko’s mind recalled the bandaged left hand that had knocked him out in the first place, the eerie hue of the engraving hidden beneath visceral. “He must have something – a relic – that can control others. Either that or it made him so strong that he could dominate the others. And judging from the other thugs in this cell, I’m leaning more towards physical domination.”

“He seems pretty unhinged. Maybe he’s like Alvin as well… fucking hell, Raktor is becoming weirder and weirder,” Damian mumbled to himself, noticing Lionel’s weird way of speaking. “That Lionel talks far too much.”

“Alvin?” Niko asked as he shuffled over to a wall, propping himself up against it despite the restraints of the ropes on his wrists and ankles.

“I mean Kyle. He was not always Kyle, you know.”

“Oh yea, I heard. But this Lionel seems to have retained memories of his former self.”

“Regardless, we will eventually miss our regular check-in with Adrian and Keith, and a search party will be sent for us.” Damian pointed out.

“That’s assuming we’re in the same location as before. We don’t even know where we are now. We should try to get out on our own first.” Niko urged.

Damian nodded, checking around the cell for any potential escape routes. His cell was completely barebones, with not even a window to speak of. However, he noticed Niko’s cell had an arctech boiler inside, something that could help them. Niko, too had already seen it, his body squirming over like a caterpillar to reach it.

The boiler was fully functional and scalding hot to the touch, leading Niko to quickly place his ropes against the hot surface pipes, using them as a way to weaken the ropes, pulling hard. The threads of the rope began to fray against the extreme heat of the combustion boiler, allowing Niko to break his wrist restraints apart with ease quickly. “Not so hard now, right?”

“Don’t get too cocky, your ankles are still tied,” Damian replied. Niko chaffed at the negativity, wondering if Damian really had something out for him even in such a desperate situation. He looked around for a lower pipe with which he could use to break the ropes off, but did not find any. The coolant pipe of the boiler could hardly help him snap off the ropes.

He did find a metal dipping stick meant to measure the level of arcia fuel in the tank but had yet to learn how it would help him. Damian sighed in disappointment, slumping slightly. “Let’s just wait for Adrian to send backup.”

“No, I got this,” Niko assured, quickly using his free hands to retrieve the dipping stick from its holster and place it against the combustion section of the boiler, where the temperatures were the highest. The tip of the stick soon became hotter, glowing red. Niko glared at it, watching the metal stick heat up. Just like in the factories.

The moment the dipping stick was on the verge of melting, he placed it against his ankle restraints, the dipping stick cutting through the ropes like a hot knife through butter. “See? I told you.” Niko grinned smugly, but he was still trapped in the cell. If Lionel came back again and saw him with his restraints undone, it would be all for nought.

He quickly reheated the dipping stick and raced over to the lock on the grille by hopping, putting the tip against it. It did not melt instantly, forcing Niko to repeat the move a few more times before the lock was finally weakened; the metal degraded and was not as strong as before.

Niko then used the dipping stick to create a gap in the grill itself, continuously burning and melting away the flimsy metal wires to allow both his hands to fit through and twist the lock apart by sheer force. With a grunt, the lock broke easily, a snapping sound echoing in the cell.

Damian winced from the sound, checking if the guard had woken up. Luckily for them, they did not, but Niko was confident he would be able to take down the guard either way.

“Okay, I’ll get you out now.” It was a cinch to get Damian out, with Niko able to break apart the lock and ropes with ease. They kept it quiet, making sure the sleeping guard did not know sense of their escape until they got close enough. With a quick lunge and a grapple, Niko choked the guard from behind, strangling him until the guard fell unconscious.

The other prisoners were obviously aware of what was happening; their eyes focused on the two. The two of them then hid the body behind the boiler while frisking the unconscious guard for the keys to the other cells. “His clothes don’t seem to match the thugs that we were fighting. Are there more than one gang working together under Lionel?” Damian pondered, flipping the guard’s body over.

“Then that makes infiltration easier – the other gangs won’t recognise me.” Niko grinned, taking off his shirt.

“Or this guard’s mates would spot you out instantly.”

“Better than going out in my own clothes. This way, I can blend in with a higher chance of success.”

“We should free the others,” Damian suggested. “They could help us break out easily – we have no idea how many of them are out there.”

“Good idea, but not yet.” Niko scratched his chin, thinking. “I’ll go scout ahead and clear the path, figure out our attack plan. Else we would be running like headless chickens.”

Damian’s mouth was slightly agape, but he kept his lips shut soon, simply nodding at Niko. Niko grabbed the guard’s handgun, checking the pellets in the magazine. He then changed into the guard’s clothes before tiptoeing out of the basement, his eyes and ears peeled for any other thugs coming in.

As he ascended the staircase, he found the entrance to be unguarded, though there were plenty of other thugs around on the expansive ground floor of what seemed to be an abandoned power station. The floor was divided into clearly marked territories, each of the separate thug gangs keeping to their own corner.

However, a pile of scavenged war equipment towered nearly three stories high stood and dominated the centre of the floor, accumulated from the two months of South Sector, with thugs from every gang repairing and fixing them up before handing them out to the various gangs. What the hell are they arming for?

Niko noticed a few catwalks, intersecting pathways above him that led to rooms overlooking the floor. Just as he was about to blend into the gangs and try to gleam more information, Lionel’s voice could be heard over the din.

“Ah, how good of you to finally sit down and chat with us!” Lionel smiled as he patted a burly man two heads taller than him. Yet despite the disparity in sizes, the burly man was clearly intimidated by Lionel, instead smiling sheepishly in response.

“Here is the main assembly area. We have other locations – but this is where you and your crew would be held up. Of course, I’ll compensate for the loss of your two crew members.”

“I… I don’t understand what you’re trying to do here.” The burly man glanced around the area, recognizing a few other small-time thugs that had also been subjugated by Lionel. He locked eyes with one of them, recognizing him as his long-time rival that had always been fighting for control over a street. However, instead of exchanging blows, his rival immediately averted his gaze, focused back on repairing and cleaning up the scavenged war equipment.

“Oh, I see you have met your rival! If I understand correctly, you were both fighting for less than two hundred meters worth of real estate. What a shame!” Lionel cackled, slapping the burly man on the back.

“So what, you want us to be just buddies now? That fucker killed my friend!” The burly man countered, his original rude personality peeking out. A quick glare from Lionel put that back in its place in a blink, the burly man unwilling to fight.

“Do you know why Raktor had even fallen to such a state? Because the major gangs recognised that their disputes with each other and the medium gangs in the sectors were like dogs in a race, laughed and ridiculed by the audience, which is the nobility. But who made this decision? Only a few at the top controlled the lives of so many. Sending our brothers and comrades to their deaths in the bid for independence.”

“Think for a second.” Lionel continued, pacing around the burly man. “Think about what would happen if the major gangs really took control of Raktor. What then? Would our lives change? Would you climb up the ranks? The privileged few treat the masses like cannon fodder! They are no different from the nobility themselves!”

Lionel grabbed the burly man by the head with his bandaged left hand, pulling him down and staring into his eyes. “But you see, things are changing. Honour and hierarchy matter no more when the major gangs treat us like trash. Now it is time for those downtrodden to rise up and take control of what they deserve!”

“The Seven Snakes would instantly attack us and wipe us out!” The burly man countered. “Did you not witness their strength through the war?”

“Don’t think too highly of them - they are weak right now. We have even captured their vipers with just a simple trap and a little bribery of their observers. The Seven Snakes is not invulnerable, even Kyle himself. Isn’t that right? RIGHT?!” Lionel grinned with a tinge of insanity in his eyes, suddenly punching the burly man in the face hard, sending him sprawling from the sudden burst of force.

“No major gang would respect our wishes – and as Kyle has demonstrated so clearly, it is strength and strength alone that speaks the loudest in Raktor!” Lionel roared. “Strength in numbers! Strength in unity! No more fighting among each other for petty gains and crimes, fighting over a single block. With us united, we can take back entire districts from both the Seven Snakes and the Tul’e Da’li!”

Alright, the fucker is off his rocker. Niko decided he had seen enough, planning to sneak into a nearby workbench where two thugs were working. They eyed him warily, glancing at the gang insignia on his clothes. “Hey, aren’t you supposed to be guarding the prisoners downstairs?”

“I’m on break now. There’s someone else covering me.” Niko answered with confidence, acting like he belonged.

“Right…” The thugs returned to their work, allowing Niko to walk around freely. Weapons were nearly littered everywhere, with almost no one guarding anything. It was as though it was an open armoury, with close to a hundred thugs gathered in the building itself, by Niko’s estimates. We’re going to need weapons.

Niko sauntered up to a box of repaired handguns, picked it up and headed straight down to the basement. Thanks to the disparate gangs and apparent lack of recognition between gangs on who was whose member, no one stopped Niko, who looked just like any other thug moving cargo.

He soon made it downstairs, relaying the information he had gotten to Damian. “So they are planning to start an uprising using the minor thugs. And our observer network is compromised?”

“Seems that way. I don’t think the rescue squad is coming if that is the case.”

“I think they will.”

“What? Why?”

“You probably missed your regular drinking session at the basement pub of the mall. Eric Dicar or Keith would immediately know something is off.”

“Fuck off.”

Damian and Niko began to check the handguns, noticing many of them were Seven Snakes weapons. Some of them even looked brand-new. Has our entire gang truly been compromised from within? How far does it go? Niko was crestfallen, knowing that there were members in the gang that were selling weapons on the black market for personal gain.

Sure, the Seven Snakes themselves were also selling weapons, but still it left a bad taste in Niko’s mouth. The clattering of the handguns did not go unnoticed by the other prisoners. No words were needed to be exchanged between them, everyone instinctively nodding in silent agreement.

“Time for a prison break.”