Goal of the day: 1179 words. Written: 1185.
- Clean," Antonio nodded, looking at my forehead.
I touched my dry skin with my fingers. It was a little stretched. I touched the wound and the skin came away a little, but it did not hurt.
I got up and walked over to the mirror on the wall and looked. Really. Clean. Only my chin was smeared with something.
I rubbed my chin, but it didn't clear.
- He shouldn't have to clean up. - said Naoki. - That's the way it was before.
I stopped wiping my chin and, wringing my hands, I threw the damp and sharp-smelling cloth into a nearby waste bucket.
- Aimee? - Antonio suggested.
- Let's go," I said.
- Let's go," Stone echoed, sarcastically.
"Morons."
* * *
We were on our way to the Babchi King's Hall, Antonio told me. I didn't really know who the King of Babki was and what to expect, but we were heading towards it.
Me, a dark-haired girl who turns out to be called Acorn, my found weapon and my strangely close friend Naoki Takashi... Whatever his name is, in short, Joe, who is a good weapon and a bad conversationalist. And Antonio, the costumed character from the YYY Gang. The gang that I was told I knew, but know nothing about.
"More questions than answers..."
- Antonio, why should I trust you? - I asked him as we descended in the lift from the medical station to some floor underground. Or on the ground.
Antonio looked at me. The tiny crystal on his neck glowed momentarily green.
"What is this crystal?"
- Why shouldn't you? - he asked back. - So I saved your life.
- He saved me... by escaping - interjected Naoki quietly from the palm of my hand. This one was lying in my palm because I didn't want to put it somewhere I didn't know where again - and if something happened... Well, at least it would be close at hand. Or rather in my hand.
- From what? - I raised an eyebrow. I realised it was the City Automatons that I had seen back at the zoo, and probably some people standing behind them, but I had no idea what they were.
- From the City Watch, of course. After all... She was after you, right? - Antonio raised an eyebrow.
- Mmm, I thought, perhaps...
"Scared man! Gabrielle sooner!"
- Pala, yes! You must have followed me," I quickly added, remembering my encounter with a group of people outside the bar, "I was spotted by a group of people outside the bar... While I was thinking whether to follow you or not.
- Well, you see, I told you that you should trust me more," Antonio smiled.
I don't know why, but I trusted him more. I'm not sure, because I didn't know anything about him, his past and what I was involved in... But for some reason my trust in him went up.
The lift stopped, groaned and its doors opened softly. Antonio stepped out of the car and I followed him. We got off in another white tunnel. Only this one was much wider, bigger than the corridors we were walking through. In the middle of the tunnel were empty rails.
"Some kind of maze."
- What now? - I ask, following Antonio.
- Now we're waiting," he replied, pressing the green round button on the platform at the edge of the tracks.
Before a few seconds had passed, I suddenly heard a whistle and a small single carriage, with no visible engine or anything like that, came flying down the tracks from one end of the tunnel.
- Oh, faster than I expected! - Antonio laughed in surprise.
When the empty carriage stopped, we boarded it, and without even asking where we wanted to go, it closed its doors and started whistling slowly and quickly down the tunnel back to where it came from.
- Where are we going? - I asked Antonio as we headed away.
Antonio was silent for a moment.
- Well, I told you - to the King of Babki. Is your memory that bad?
- No... - I muttered softly.
- Here it is. By the way, are these all the questions you have?
- Oh no! - I waved my hands. Those were certainly not all the questions I had.
* * *
As we took the underground train to the right end of the YYY town, Antonio told us how he was one of several subordinates of the King of Babki in charge of the City of Kaunas and related tasks. Together with Elm and a few other people, he was subordinate to the King and did whatever was needed. Like a secret agent, he told me.
He has been working for YYY Gang for more than ten years, ever since he graduated from the institute in the City and decided that his values were not to his liking.
Antonio taught me how the YYY Gang wasn't really a Gang at all - it was just an old name. It was more like a giant corporation with tens of thousands of "employees" or inhabitants, or a micro-country in a country.
Located about 70 kilometres from the Greater Kaunas City in a town she built from the ground up, known locally as simply the town or YYY town, she prepared and manufactured all the equipment and supplies related to toilets here.
Antonio didn't seem to be very happy with the Gang's performance, but in his words, anything is worthy of attention when the corporation that produces it has a virtual monopoly around the world.
When asked why the Gang had such a strange name, Antonio could not answer why. He only mentioned the joking myth that it was named after the King of Babkas sitting on the toilet, coughing, water splashing on his bottom and jumping up in the air shouting "yyy". And, of course, he warned the Babki King not to mention this theory.
Antonio successfully ignored questions about my past, or deflected them by saying that others would tell me more about it. However, he told me how I was once a member of the gang YYY, in charge of some secret investigations that he can no longer talk about, and that he himself never knew much about. The City Council didn't like what I had learned, so they ripped out my memory in the hope of using it, and threw me into the Arena to finish it. For fun. Fe.
Naoki seems to be impressed by my hostility to the Council. And for good reason, on second thought - she is the one who pushed him under the Arena. Well, the libs.
* * *
- We've arrived," Antonio succinctly stated as we stepped out of the elevator from the underground train station, which passed through the seemingly endless skyscraper.
We stood in front of a large white and gold door in a wider corridor than the others. It was equally empty, and there were no people or things in it. Not even windows. Just endless white.
- Finally: this white void is driving me crazy," I nodded my head.
Antonio seemed to understand and turned to the door and touched his amulet. A moment later, the door opened.
"Wow. Luxurious."
...Into a huge hall, with golden sculptures, water gushing against the walls, huge windows to the outside and a huge table at the end of the hall.
Several people were already seated at this one, judging by the number of chairs, out of a possible fifty or so. And they seemed to be waiting for us.
Antonio waved his head wordlessly and we moved on.
- What the hell is this place? - murmured Naoki in the palm of his hand.
But I didn't answer him and instead just gently stroked his fingers, gripping tighter. It should not have fallen from my hand. Although it might have been strange to come with the Stone in one palm. Especially in a room like this.
"Well, but Antonio is still with his guitar, straight out of the rocket - I haven't had a chance to put it anywhere else..."
At the table, in the most visible place, in front of us was a bald man with an angular face and a very short beard of a few days. He was wearing a bright red tight-fitting suit, as if he had just stepped out of a swimming pool, or parachuted, or done something that required ergonomics. He had his arms folded and watched us come in.
To his left sat two girls: an Elm in the same white suit, but this time with some kind of obscure cannon behind him. And a girl I didn't recognise, a blonde with long hair and an inexpressive pointy face, and a large tray next to her, almost probably her height.
On the other side of the table, there was one man - black-haired, short-haired and looking like he was going to come and bash people's heads in. Actually, he wasn't very different from the bald leader, except that his head wasn't shaved bald.
"He looks a bit like Ovid from Arena."
We approached the table and stopped a few steps away. We looked at each other in silence, and for a moment I was starting to feel quite uncomfortable.
- What a bunch of morons," grumbled Stone, who clearly didn't care what he said or what others, including me, thought of him.