A man opens the door of an old dilapidated house, its creaking wooden floors bent at every step, walking past destroyed painting and ripped wallpaper. Passing through a dusty living room, its worn-out furniture marked the clear abandonment as he reached a slightly cleaner rounded table near the rusty broken down kitchen.
Another man with half of his face burnt beyond recognition, barely visible due to the dim lighting of the candles around them, he spoke in a serious, somewhat raspy voice.
“Ah, you’re finally here… Sit, we have to talk.”
“I hope it’s something important for dragging me all the way out here… I have to go back soon, that pacifist imbecile is trying to dissuade any that’ll listen to him. He’s making it impossible to travel around without him asking a ton of questions.”
“So you finally unified the tribes? Good. We have to find a way to use it in our favor, as well as him.”
“Unified is a strong word. I can’t wait for that self-righteous bastard to have a hunting accident, it would make our plans go much smoother.”
“You know I don’t care about your petty political problems while you guys play dress up. Did you bring the package I asked for?”
“Yes, I made some outsiders get it. They actually believed it was for making our Rachas grow faster, gullible kids. They did prove to be resilient, none of them died, only one of Reye’s men.”
“What does it matter? Soon he won’t have to worry about anything… I sent for you to discuss a more important matter at hand. It appears we have to move up our plans, after what they did I doubt if I’ll be able to survive much longer…”
“Sir… Don’t you think that’s a slight overreaction over a few burns?”
The man gets up abruptly slamming his fist on the table, deepening his voice he says in a menacing tone:
“Let me burn half of your body in compressed gas then! See how you feel afterwards!” the man wrathfully exclaimed. “Maybe I should send a bomber squad up to your little village, see how smoked tribals taste.” he sternly threatened looking at him through the darkness of the room. “I’m not funding you up there for your lame advice, I need your people to come down here. That is, unless you want me to blame all of this on you, we can settle this right now.”
“N-no need, sir… Tell me, what do we need to do?”
“We’ve received information from our infiltrators that they have positioned themselves to allow us easy access inside… Plus, they’re working there as well. Hmph, they actually believe that they can have a normal life after everything they’ve done…”
“So they are trying to reactivate the trains after all… When will the attack take place, sir?”
“Everything in due time, my dear Alfonso… We’ll strike soon, we just have to set the stage first.” the man let out a malevolent chuckle. “I need you to convince Reyes to bring as many of his best warriors as you can. We need every able-bodied person ready to fight.”
“Yes, sir! One question though: What about Lint and his people?”
“That ungrateful hijo de puta will pay along with all of those that he pretended to save. That pompous prick will regret ever banishing us out here… After our success, we’ll spread our message over to all the provinces, showing them a true example of how to restore our society and the willingness to defend its grim end.”
“Reyes will probably turn on us when he sees that we’re not following through with the excuse I’ll make up to convince him to go along with this…”
“It doesn’t matter, by that point it’ll already be too late. We’ll get rid of him along with the others, collateral damage as those soldier boys told us we were gonna be when they hunted us through the ruins. No more misery for any of us.”
“Never again, sir!”
Their daily routines were slowly being assimilated to their daily lives. The smell of coffee in the morning replaced the muck and putrid odor that they became used to. Cornelia’s job as a cook in the same café where Adriana served as a waitress. Lindbergh and Maxi became construction inspectors around various sites around The Cordón. Life began to gain some normality, since the harsh rule of law only applied if they didn’t have the money to pay for their needs, or if you were caught in a place you were not authorized to be in, other than that people were free to do with their time as they will.
Large public plazas had been converted into hydroponic farms, growing all sorts of crops ranging from corn, wheat, tomato, lettuce, onions, potatoes, carrots, and various seasonal fruits using growth accelerators.
There weren’t any great smiles or laughter found within the crowds roaming all over town, yet people seemed content to carry on with their routines, not meddling into each other’s business and violence was rare, if there ever was any at all. Passiveness grew within everyone since they only had to worry about their work schedules, a small price to pay in exchange for having power, running water, and solid structures to call homes was more than enough to keep everyone going.
One day, Adriana was taking a large coffee order over to a building where a large number of captains of the city guard and other high-ranking officials were having breakfast, just a few blocks away from her café. While she was crossing the first block on her way back, a man with an old smartphone walked past her toward the building where she had just done her delivery.
Stepping through the door into the café, she sees Cornelia going on her break, putting her feet up in a nearby booth.
“Hey, Adri. Can you get me some water, pretty please? It’s so hot in there today.”
“Sure, no worries.”
Grabbing the icy cold water from Adriana’s hand before she could set it on the table, Cornelia chugged down the water letting out a loud satisfied sigh as she put down the glass, when she noticed Adriana’s worried expression prompting her to ask:
“Adri, what’s up? Did something happen?”
“Eh? Oh no! It’s probably nothing… It’s just that I saw this guy talking on a smartphone when I was on my way back from my delivery… It seemed odd.”
“Smartphones? You mean like the ones our parents had back when they were little?”
“Y-yeah, at least that’s what I think it was… I don’t know what he was up to, but he had the same look about him as those creeps from the C.L.A.N.”
Cornelia suddenly stands up, leaning onto Adriana while whispering:
“Shhh, Adri… No one can know about that here. Remember we need to follow the rules without raising any suspicions, we don’t have a choice... Besides, I doubt that there are terrorists infiltrated in such a highly guarded place like this.”
Letting out a small sigh of relief, Adriana straightens herself up replying:
“It’s true… We’ll just have to see what the guys have to say tonight.”
“Yeah, Abby told me earlier that Hans has some news for us, so we’ll see if we can get a move on tonight.”
“I really hope so, It’s not like I’m complaining about the life we have here, but we’re not really getting anywhere--”
Out of nowhere a huge explosion shakes the entire area, making the café’s plates, trays and cutlery shatter onto the floor. Running outside to see what was happening, they could see a huge cloud of smoke coming out of the building Adriana had visited earlier, now converted into a molten ruin.
People were frozen in place, staring in horror at the scorched bodies of all the passersby, soldiers, and robots that were blown away from the site, most of which were only recognizable for their small bits and pieces of their uniforms or limbs spread all over the avenue.
Shortly after, a commando arrived alongside with a firefighter squad, as they tried to fight the growing inferno, the soldiers began to brutally question and beat down everyone that they could find nearby in search for the perpetrator.
Seeing the excessive force displayed by the soldiers, Cornelia grabbed Adriana’s hand, pulling her out of the trance she was in from staring at the flames before the soldiers spotted them.
“Come on, Adri! They’re gonna get us if we stay here! I don’t wanna go back to the dungeons… Let’s get back to the apartment.”
Adriana stops halfway down the street, staring blankly at her as she whispered in a monotone voice:
“We’re never gonna find any peace, are we? Is this what Dios has planned for us? Do we really deserve this sort of Divine Punishment after all?”
“Adri, c’mon! Before I decide to punch you and drag your unconscious ass back to the apartment!”
Pulling harder on Adriana’s hand, she finally reacts and starts to catch up to Cornelia as they flee the scene. Once inside the apartment, they tell Titus what happened, to which he replies what he saw barely an hour before the blast.
“I thought it was gonna be another typical day, until I saw some men talking on what I thought to be radios. They looked like old tech, then I saw a lot of movement over on the port side of the street, where Maxi and Lindbergh were supposed to be working today. I only caught a glimpse of a few military trucks rushing past deeper into The Cordón.”
The girls look at Titus confused at his words, trying to process the information, Cornelia speaks up:
“I don’t think there’s terrorists around here again, right? There’s just too much security. No one in their right mind even dares to steal a potato, how will they find the courage to blow up an entire building and expect to get away with it?”
“I think that it isn’t about the crime per se, I think it’s the message they want to convey. Striking fear and uneasiness into people’s hearts by attacking their house, the places where they thought to be safe, that is worth more than just some monetary or material gain.” Adriana reflected, furrowing her brows.
“I’ll message Hans, see if he knows anything about what happened.”
“Good idea, though we’re still gonna have to wait for tonight if we want everybody to pitch in on what our next move will be.”
A brief silence falls around them whilst Cornelia sends the message. All of a sudden, loud bursts of gunfire resounded through the streets, followed by horrified screams crying out for help.
“I think you should warn them to watch out for those hulking death squads running around here as well.” Titus expressed, his voice trembling with fear.
A few hours passed in relative peace, the orange tint of dusk began to turn into the blackness of night, hurried steps rushed through the corridors outside of the apartment, the sound of heavy boots congregating around the door showed an apparent desperation to get in. Cornelia readied her knife next to the entrance, while Adriana positioned herself with Lindbergh’s axe on the other side. Before they could react, rattling keys found their way into the door abruptly swinging it open, revealing Hans, Lindbergh and Maxi getting into the apartment clearly agitated.
“Are you okay? Why’d they let you go earlier today? Did something happen?” Adriana worryingly asked.
“I don’t know what we saw, but I think we need to find a way out of here, now… Whatever is coming, it’s some heavy shit.” Maxi affirmed, trying to control himself as he anxiously rustled his hair.
“How so? What did you see? What do you think is going on?” Cornelia asked, slightly on edge.
With a serious expression, Lindbergh stepped forward as he began to explain:
“I think Maxi is right, we have to go tonight… I’ve been thinking of a plan these past few days if we ever came across something as complicated as this, but I want to run it by all of you, especially you, chicuela.”
“Tell us what you saw! You’re just making me worry more and more!”
“Long story short: Lint is mobilizing large contingents of troops around town. They’re trying to be discreet about it, but they moved their commando units to each access point throughout The Cordón, I highly doubt this is a drill, but that’s not what we were worried about.” Lindbergh continued with a concerned expression.
“It’s what we saw when we were looking for Hans down at the train station.” Maxi added, trying to control his breathing.
“What did you guys see that got you so worked up?” Cornelia insisted, anxiously pacing around the room.
“Trucks… Trucks filled with bodies, men, women, children, everyone that was deemed suspicious by Lint’s men or his robots were executed earlier today. They even took a bunch of people that were working with us all day, as they justified with it being odd behavior to just carry on with your duties as if nothing happened after the bombing.” Maxi assured them, barely able to maintain his composure.
“That’s not all, Hans told us about something that he picked up beyond The Cordón”
“My analysis of the area outside of The Cordón picked up faint 4G radio frequencies. Upon further investigation I deciphered several conversations referring to the use of explosives and sabotage operations due to occur within these walls, hidden stashes of weapons and equipment for some upcoming conflict. Apparently their plan is to eliminate the high-ranking officials, so that the rest are easier to overtake and won’t put up much of a fight.”
“So that explains the explosion from the building earlier today, they blew it up because of all those captains and soldiers… If Adri stayed a bit longer she’d be up in smoke too… Coño, this is messed up.”
“Dear Lord… What could anyone possibly hope to accomplish by invading this place? If they break the order that they’ve built here, it’ll be even worse than on the outside.”
Hans began projecting an image from the palm of his hand. In it he displayed various photos he took while on his patrol routes during the day, showing people carrying out suspicious activities around the gates of The Cordón. One thing seemed to repeat in almost every picture: the initials “N.F” written on the different places around town.
“They appear to be agents of Nuevo Futuro…” Hans stated.
“What do you mean by Nuevo Futuro?! They were hunted down by the Federation years ago! They couldn’t have survived all this time…” Adriana said, mortified by the news.
“They’re even more extremist than the C.L.A.N, even going as far as sacrificing themselves just to make a point to whomever gets in their way.” Lindbergh pointed out, contemplating the situation.
“I still can’t believe it’s them… Those guys were responsible for so many horrible things before, and they’re still trying to justify those dirty deeds just because the world isn't as technological as before. They were the first to celebrate whenever a town reverted back to using candles and firewood stoves after their attacks on local gas pipes and power lines. Saying that how things were supposed to be.” Cornelia remarked.
“I remember when a couple of their agents managed to infiltrate one of OptoGenica’s labs when they were working on my project. They thought all that tech was just an excuse to experiment on animals. They treated me just fine, but they talked down to me as if I was stupid or something. Then they got caught trying to free a few high-risk projects, and they ended up committing suicide using those death chips before they could be interrogated.”
“Titus is right.” Hans affirmed. “Nuevo Futuro has always been an inherently contradictory organization. From its beginnings it has always praised a less technology based life, yet they were initially financed by various tech companies and political parties in order to drum up controversy that would make everything tech related seem divided between its supporters and its old-fashioned contraries. They attempted to restrict or censor the technologies used in medicine, agriculture, science, education and security just because according to them it could also be weaponized against the people. Their hatred for robots and androids became obvious when they openly began destroying retail stores and distribution centers for all manner of robotic components, and unit manufacturing. To them, this New World is the actual better Nuevo Futuro according to themselves.” he explained whilst projecting various imagery from their attacks before the war.
“It almost sounds like you agree with them, Hans. Would you rather be a glorified toaster rather than a fully-functional Wiki?” Maxi cheekily asked.
“No, I was merely stating the facts established in their old website on the HoloNetwork’s archives. They could’ve modified their endgame goal during all this time, maybe they’ve added terrorism to their post-apocalyptic ideals.”
“Beyond all that, we should talk about our plan for getting out of here.” Adriana remarked. “I know you checked the train and all its systems appear to be in working order. Right, Hans?”
“Yes, that’s correct. We just need to release the magnetic seals and we should be good to go.”
“Yeah, aside from the train being a total graffiti masterpiece and having lost its shiny finish, everything seems to be okay. We need to wait for midnight or a big enough timetable to get our things discreetly out of here and onto the train.” Lindbergh proposed.
“Sounds good to me, I’m gonna go ahead and start packing. Do you want me to help you with your things, Cornie?.” Adriana asked as she walked back to their room.
“There’s really no need, I only need my essentials. Now I’m wondering about our destination, would there even be any power in the other stations out of here? What if we de-rail or something because we lost all the juice we got from here?” Cornelia said with a concerned expression.
“Don’t worry, Cornie. I’ve checked the emergency systems on this Pretoria line, its on-board batteries should be completely charged since you reactivated the power stations on your way here. The excess voltage will allow us for a direct, one-way trip to any of the Buenos Aires-Manaus stations, according to my analysis the only collision-free route that takes us closest to Caracas is the Brasilia station. We’ll have to improvise from there.” Hans explained.
“That sounds like the best scenario we could hope for, I hope the map that Rick gave Abby works that far away. We need to pack supplies for a long trip, because I don’t know if we’ll even be able to come back anytime soon…” Cornelia affirmed, taking a nostalgic look at her apartment.
“Don’t sweat it, chicuela. We’ll get out of here, together. Now let’s start packing…” Lindbergh comforted her, placing his hand on her shoulder with a wide smirk.
Cornelia feels uplifted by his words, going over to help Adriana pack their stuff in her parent’s room. After a while everyone had their packs and luggage stacked by the front door.
“I’m still nervous about getting on the Pretoria, everyone told me than when it worked it was lightning fast… I feel like I’m already getting sick just thinking about it.” Adriana worryingly expressed.
“Nothing’s gonna happen to you, Adri, so stop being silly. Look at this ad pamphlet from before, it says all about its history, safety measures, precautions and clears up the most frequent concerns first-time passengers had.” Cornelia reassured her by giving her the colorful brochure detailing all of the information.
In it, there were a number of details about the different routes and timetables the Pretoria had, illustrated in old-fashioned art deco style. Showing every destination with its most iconic monuments or structures, along with brief touristic summaries of every city with an enabled Pretoria station within the Federation. It also detailed the various amenities and comforts offered throughout both its short and long routes, such as sleeper cabins complete with small private bathrooms, a fully-equipped restaurant carriage, relaxations and entertainment carriages containing small theaters, basic spa amenities, and game room complete with board games, various videogame platforms, and even an assortment of rental e-book readers.
“Well the good news is that the train that takes us to Brasilia is on the upper platform, so once we get off the street level we should be good to go. We’ll have a smooth trip from there, maybe we can even slip a small spa day in there as well, eh? Whaddaya say?” Cornelia smiled excitedly.
“You’re right… We should enjoy the trip, for now let’s just hope Dios lets us get out of here quickly without a fuss.”
Later that night, faint flares splash through the windows of the apartment as everyone waited anxiously for the soldiers to clear out from the nearby streets. Trucks rush up and down the avenue carrying robots and soldiers over to the access points around The Cordón. Out of nowhere, loud footsteps can be heard out on the streets running to one of the military checkpoints as a man screamed to the top of his lungs:
“No more misery! Welcome Nuevo Futuro!”
Ignoring the guards and their threats to shoot him down, the man manages to activate one of the main access gates of The Cordón, only to be immediately shot down with his hand still pressing the button. The soldiers rushed to close the gates, but it was already too late: a massive army of tribals atop battle-armored Rachas, supported by acid giant ants stormed in massacring all that were unfortunate enough to still be out on the streets.
Chaos ensued all over the main battlefield throughout the entire 9 de Julio Avenue. Infiltrators managing to sneak past security, activating the rest of the gates all over the walls, allowing for the bloodthirsty army to pour onto the streets, dragging people out of their homes and siccing their insect underlings to feed on them. Gunfire from the units stationed nearby began to repel the attackers, their crossbows, bows and arrows being no match for superior equipment and training, the innumerable amount of bugs overwhelmed and eradicated most outposts, as the ants sprayed their acid sludge all over the robots and human defenders as their agonizing sparks along with their terrifying cries of agony demoralized their ranks. Rachas proceeded to ram through the reinforced roadblocks and barricades set up around town, followed by their ranged ant support, despite being rapidly cut down by intense gunfire, they relentlessly pushed onward relying on their numeric superiority in order to exterminate them.
The conflict intensified as the military began regrouping into more defensible positions within buildings or around barricaded plazas near government buildings. Bringing compact rigs equipped with surgical missiles to the frontlines began to turn the tide to their favor, seeing how the blasts decimated the tribal ranks, making most of the nearby bugs stray into a frenzy as they began to attack friend and foe alike, or just getting disoriented enough for them to become less of a threat before being taken down. Groups of snipers took advantage of the broken chain of command to set up in vantage points along major conflict zones around the main streets, taking down a large number of tribals and bugs with ruthless precision.
The feeling of victory inspired the surviving units throughout The Cordón as the attackers began to slowly retreat back into the dark ruins. Before they could seal their gates once more and end the gruesome battle, a thunderous explosion resonated throughout the entire Cordón. Everyone turned to the source of the blast to see the presidential palace and nearby government buildings up in smoke, large boulders of rubble flying through the air as they crushed tribals, bugs, robots, and soldiers alike. Multiple smaller explosions began detonating all over The Cordón, making the old Microcentro of Buenos Aires begin to shake as the buildings that weren’t hit also began to collapse from the quakes caused by the continuous blasts.
A small reinforced contingent hurried down the back streets from the presidential palace, heading toward the Retiro train station as General Lint, the man leading them wrathfully exclaimed:
“Goddamn barbarians! I always knew this day would come, I know he had to be behind all this. When I get out of here I’m going to do what I should’ve done instead of letting that bastard live.”
“S-sir, what are those things? Why are they so keen to destroy everything we’ve built?” Colonel Ignacio asked, trembling in fear as he saw buildings collapse from the sheer weight of Rachas sacrificing themselves to kill surviving soldiers barricaded within them.
“Envy and hatred, Colonel… These aberrations of science were pointed against us because we were the only ones that didn’t want to accept this twisted New World. That’s why I’m more convinced than ever that we have to restore everything we had by any means necessary.”
“How will we ever escape this Hell, sir?”
“Escape? Hah! Grow some balls, man. These tribal scum have no chance against our superior weaponry and strategies. They have to be made to pay all the damage they’ve caused to Argentina and her people. We have to finish off these insufferable bastards and their infiltrated lackeys. Everything was fine until--” General Lint got lost in thought in thought for a moment. “--Until they arrived.”
Lindbergh peeked through the corner of the street, checking for signs of conflict as they ran toward the station. Sparse gunshots could be heard in the distance, the thick clouds of smoke and piles of debris on the streets made it difficult to advance quickly through the battle-torn streets.
Deafening screams resounded through the streets more than gunfire as the sounds of conflict died down, leaving only trails of smoke and ash from the still burning buildings around The Cordón.
Once they arrived at the station, they walked up the steps beginning to prepare the Pretoria for departure. The euro-neoclassic architecture of the building was spared from the conflict. There were no signs of fighting anywhere in the station, the only thing that remained was the piles of rubbish and graffitis on the wall on their way up to their platform.
Once they had their luggage and supplies secured onboard, they proceeded to schedule their train for immediate departure after a quick system check.
“Hans! Double-check if the battery reserves are fully charged, remember to take off the magnetic seal from the platform. We gotta get out of here before they decide to blow up the station too.” Lindbergh yelled out to Hans over the platform.
“Everything is in order around here. We’re good to go.”
“What do we do if someone comes along? I think we should just go instead of staying and fighting over nonsense with random survivors. The Cordón has fallen, there’s nothing left to rebuild here.” Titus sadly remarked.
“As much as it pains me to admit it, yeah. We have to look out for ourselves. We’re about to be home free, let’s step it up and get out of here.” Lindbergh announced finishing the preparations.
The battle had concentrated along the side of Avenida Madero near the port on the way to Retiro, Lint’s unit fought off against the tired yet fierce remaining tribal forces.
Seeing as more tribals acting as death squads, executing any soldiers left alive on their way to his position, Lint desperately fought down to the last man until he was surrounded by a large group of warriors commanded by a couple of familiar faces.
“It’s over, Lint. Just surrender and come with us, I really don’t want to fight you.”
“Reyes, you son of a bitch… You’ve survived all this time as well. You couldn’t have done this alone, where’s the young mummy hipster?”
“Here I am, Lint… We warned you so many times… It’s a shame it had to come to this, The Cordón could’ve been a nice place had you been more open minded… Now look at what you’ve done to your precious project.”
“What I’ve done, you pencil-neck hijo de puta?! You’re the miserable bastards that ruined what could’ve been a beacon of hope for all of our people! All because I wouldn’t stoop down to your barbaric practices and cult.” Lint spit down near his feet.
“The only one that seems to be borderline barbaric here is you, my old friend. Since you’re not the big military man anymore, you feel like what you truly are: a nobody, just like you treated us…”
“Alfonso, please… Let’s just take him back, there’s been enough bloodshed for one day.”
Reyes approaches Lint in order to restrain him by tying up his hands, while the rest of the tribals watch him intently, making sure he doesn’t resist or attempt to escape.
On their way back toward the old destroyed port, Lint thought back on how it used to look before: busy docks with trucks loaded to the brim with goods from all over the Federation and the world. Soldiers cheerfully greeting workers and visitors alike all over the site. Boring but honest work, he remembered when he lived through a terrorist attack coordinated by the C.L.A.N and N.F back in those days. They blew up one of the faculty buildings of the Universidad Católica in Puerto Madero, when they were doing their annual free summer courses inscriptions for the working class citizens that wanted to try out different opportunities, or have an additional skill set.
That day a man nervously walked in while he was on guard, after a few moments he held everyone hostage revealing he had a bomb strapped to his body. The man told Lint they couldn’t stop the detonation even if they wanted too since it was on