Chapter 201: Interlude II – Catalina

  The rain was relentless. It shed out at the night streets of the city with fierce force. Catalina sat atop her bike in a dark alleyway, the hood of her leather jacket pelted by rge raindrops. Up ahead, a group of drenched survivors sloshed through the flooded alley. Scared and trembling, they were desperate to escape her. She khey wouldn’t be able to do so. She could catch up with them in seds. However, she stayed put for now, sitting motionlessly on her bike. She was waiting for them to reach the alley’s exit, and that’s when she would tio chase them.

  It had been several days sialina’s fateful enter with Skullfa the roof of a ten-story building. She fought bravely, but ultimately, she was defeated and taken to one of Los Demonios’ bases downtown. She ter learhat Los Demonios had several sedary bases scattered throughout the city. The main base, however, was located beyond the city’s boundaries, but nobody, except for the gang leaders, knew for sure where it was located. Each base was named after the person in charge of it, and the one she was assigo was called Base Ryder.

  The man in charge of Base Ryder was exceptionally cruel. For that matter, each of those who decided to join the gang had a streak of brutal violen them. When Catalina was brought to Base Ryder, she was ushered into HQ, where Skullfad Ryder presented her with an offer to join the gang. At first, she thought she must have misheard. However, she quickly realized Skullface was serious, which took her by surprise. After all the harm she had inflicted on the gang and all the members she had killed, they still wanted her to bee one of them? She had expected to be brutally tortured for the trouble she had caused. Instead, as it turned out, Skullface’s offer remained oable.

  Notig her rea, Skullface expihat she was fearless and possessed impressive bat skills. She was one of a kind, which was why he wanted her in his ranks. Catalina had rejected the offer to join Los Demonios before, and now, after Skullface had tracked down and killed all her teammates, she had even less reason to join up with his gang. She said so to him. Judging by his bnk expression, Skullface was not surprised by her respourning away, he spoke quietly to Ryder, who nodded grimly in reply. After that brief exge, Skullface left, and Catalina didn’t see him for the several days.

  She was assigo work on the maintenance of various maes that produced goods for the base. It soon became clear that esg was impossible, as the automatic turrets would fire upon aempting to flee. She made some friends among the fellow survivors who had, like her, been captured and forced to bor for the gang. Her friendship with a guy odd grew particurly strong.

  When the guards were not paying attention, they spent a lot of time together, brainst pns to escape and free the other survivors from the clutches of Los Demonios. Despite being captured and forced to work for the gang, she had not given up her defiant spirit. She inteo eventually rebel against the gang, uhe various groups of survivors, and spark a full-scale war against Los Demonios. However, the first step was esg from Base Ryder with Todd.

  And then something terrible happened. One m, she realized Todd was missing. Before she had time to process it, two guards approached her, and the look on their faces instantly told her something was horribly wrong. She readied herself to fight back, but the guards knew her defiant spirit all too well. Without warning, they zapped her with tasers and hauled her down to the basement of HQ, where they strapped her to a metal chair bolted to the floor. One of the guards gagged her by f a dirty piece of fabrito her mouth.

  As her sciousness gradually returned, she focused on a sed bolted-dowal chair directly in front of her, where another person was tied up. He was pletely naked, his wrists bound to the chair’s arms and his ankles secured to its legs. It was Todd. Nearby, a regur table dispyed an array of medical and engineering tools: needles, scissors, scalpels, utility knives, pliers, hammers, nails, saws, chisels, and an assortment of other implements. Among them was a circur saw and a power drill with multiple bits.

  The room was dimly lit by a single bulb dangling from the ceiling, but she immediately spotted two figures on the far side of the room. As they emerged from the shadows, she reized them: Ryder and Skullface. It appeared that Skullface had returo the base during the night, while she had been in a deep sleep, too tired to hear the vehicle’s arrival.

  her Ryder nor Skullface said anything to her. They barely even looked at her. Instead, they walked to the table, carefully picked some tools, and began to use them on Todd. Catali out a scream, but the gag around her mouth silenced her cries. She fought against her restraints in vain, but the bindings held her securely in the chair. All she could do was wat helpless despair as her friend was being tortured and listen to his bone-chilling screams. After he finally succumbed to his wounds and died, Skullface turned his attention to Catalina.

  Sure enough, she initially thought he had uncovered their pns to escape and rise against them. Yet, it quickly became apparent that she had misjudged the situatioold her that he still wanted her to join Los Demonios and that he would give her twenty-four hours to sider it.

  He then o Ryder, who reached into his pocket with a hand smeared in Todd’s blood and produced a folded piece of paper. As he unfolded it, he began to read a list of names aloud. Catalina’s heart sank as she reized them all—they were her fellow survivors who had been captured and forced to work at Base Ryder.

  Once Ryder finished reading the names from the list, Skullface took over. He informed her that she had been watched throughout her time at the base. The names on the piece of fabric beloo individuals she had grown close ted in order of closeness from high to low. Ryder pulled out a pen and crossed out the first name on the list: Todd. The name was Melissa, another person with whom Catalina had formed a bond.

  Skullfaformed her that the following m, she would be taken to the basement for the same offer. If she refused to join Los Demonios again, she would be forced to watch Melissa die slowly and brutally just like Todd had. After that, she would be given awenty-four hours to think, and the cycle would tinue. If she tio turn down his offer, people on the list would keep dying. If she still refused to join when all the people on the list were dead, she would be watched once again, and the perso close to would bee the arget. While she could attempt to isote herself from others, Skullface assured her it wouldn’t make much of a difference. Anyone who so much as smiled at her would potentially bee the victim.

  Catalina couldn’t believe Skullface was willing to go to such extremes simply to coerce her into joining the gang. The human factor was a valuable resource, but now it was clear to her that breaking her spirit had bee a matter of principle for him. It wasn’t just about ving her to join Los Demonios. Instead, it was about the satisfa of f her pliance.

  Accepting her grim reality, she aowledged that she had no real choice but to join. At least this way, she would regain some sembnce of freedom instead of being trapped within the fines of the base. Being part of the gang could give her leverage—an opportunity to move freely, tize, and ultimately, to rebel wheime was right.

  However, Skullface appeared to sense what she was thinking. Leaning in closer, he told her in a chilling tohat if she escaped or did anything foolish, everyone on that list would die. The threat loomed in the air. While she wouldn’t be there to see the aftermath, he assured her it would happen. He was still leaning in toward her, and for the first time, she was able to see his eyes up close. The emptiness within them filled her with dread. They resembled lifeless pieces of gss, devoid of aional depth—no joy, no hatred, not even a hint of sadism. It dawned on her: he was utterly soulless, and she had no doubt that he would carry out his threat if she attempted to escape or front the gang.

  So she had no choice but to join the gang. Sure enough, she was stantly monitored. Guards in HQ’s security room could always track her movements around the city as the dot representing her was always visible on the monitor dispying the city map. In the initial days of her joining, she wasn’t even allowed to go anywhere alone. Over time, though, she gradually earhe gang’s trust. She was eventually permitted to travel the city alone, and at some point, she was even rewarded with a top-notch motorbike.

  That amazing reward was for her help in capturing several groups of survivors without losing a single one. As it turned out, she was exceptionally good at this. The key to her success y in a spell she had discovered before joining Los Demonios. This spell allowed her to trol groups of ex-humans. It was a tricky spell, not easy to use, but once you got the hang of it, it became incredibly useful. The spells were the rarest items in this world, but she had even mao figure out how to farm this particur spell. She had farmed the spell and dedicated herself to practig the spell until she perfected it. After joining the gang, she even learo use it on groups of survivors.

  Using the spell on humans proved far more challenging than on mindless mutants. To wield it effectively, the target group had to be emotionally unstable—ideally in a state of panic. Catalihis spell a secret, ensuring that no one was aware of it. As a result, the gang members remained oblivious to the reason behind her sistent success in capturing survivroups or luring them into traps set by ang members. With her help, the Ryder base successfully acquired dozens of survivors. She crafted a pn to intimidate regur survivors, indug paniake it easier to use the spell on them. Her teique was so well-hohat capturing a group of survivors became a pretty easy task for her.

  Ryder was genuinely impressed by her. As for Catalina, she loathed capturing survivors and f them into bor for the gang, but she knew she had no choice. At least, her tactic of intimidating groups of survivors and then using her spell ehey hardly ever fought back, preventing any casualties. Her success had also won Ryder’s trust and elevated her status within the gang. This would surely work to her advantage wheime came to rebel.

  The group of survivors Catalina was currently pursuing finally reached the end of the alley. They paused, gng left and right, peering through the sheets of rain, uain about which way to go. Catalina khey o tur, as that was where Ryder and his team had set an ambush. She focused her spell on the minds of the survivors, pelling them to take the left route. This spell only worked on groups of targets when they were emotionally unstable and fused about their options. With all the ditions fulfilled, the spell took effect seamlessly, and the group of survivors turned left as they emerged from the alley onto the main street.

  Catalina waited a moment, then followed suit. A few mier, the operation was plete. Two pickup trucks surged from a nearby alley, positioning themselves to block the survivors’ escape. The captured group was swiftly tied up and shoved into the bed of one of the trucks. Ryder, manning the mae gun mounted in the bed of the other truck, raised his voice to be heard above the heavy rain, “Good job, Catalina! Yht them right to us!”

  She simply nodded in response. Catalina had long ago earned enough trust from the gang to operate indepely, so Ryder was not there to oversee her. Instead, he relished the thrill of capturing ordinary survivors, thhly enjoying this cat-and-mouse game.

  Thewo pickup trucks drove away, heading back to Base Ryder. For a moment, Catalina watched them go. Even though she was now a legitimate member of the gang, she wasn’t actually one of them. She hated Los Demonios and wao end their reign. However, she didn’t yet know how to rebel against the gang without endangering her friends. She o e up with a pn to rebel without risking her friends suffering the same tragic fate that had befallen Todd.

  Suddenly, something made her look up. Through the curtain of rain, she spotted a figure standing on the edge of the roof of a nearby ten-story building. By that point, she had heard rumors about a pitch-bck ex-human known as the morphus, who was supposedly capable of perf long jumps, leaping from rooftop to rooftop as it navigated through the city. She had never believed these tales, thinking them too far-fetched. Yet now, as she gazed at the figure—standing still on the rooftop’s edge, ued by the p rain and howling winds—she realized those rumors were true after all. This figure was clearly not a survivor or a regur ex-human; it was the morphus. For a brief moment, it watched her from above.

  Then, before she could decide what she should do, the morphus turned and vanished from sight. As for Catalina, she kept staring at the vat space where the pitch-bck mutant had just stood. A smile formed on her lips as an idea of taking revenge on the gang slowly began to take shape in her mind.