Goal of the day: 1369 words. Written: 1359.
- Here we go then," Ruth confirmed, nodding her head towards the crystal.
And a moment later, there was a deafening explosion somewhere along the other side of the Dome, a few streets or a few hundred metres away! A moment later, a whole series of explosions.
The people in the square and in front of the Dome stopped for a second... And then they started to buzz: to walk faster if they were walking away from the Dome, and to walk slower if they were walking towards it.
- Let's wait for it to attract more attention and then we'll go," said Ruth.
Somewhere in the distance, sirens sounded. A second later, they sounded in the square where we were standing. And that really caught the attention of various people.
- Come on, come on," said what must have been their mother to the children as she walked briskly past them, dragging the two small children running behind her.
- Let's go," Ruth said to us, as if in response, and we moved too. Only in the opposite direction to where all the people were running or rushing.
"They seem to be a bit used to these things. Although scared..."
However, I didn't say my thoughts out loud because there was no reason to distract my teammates.
A moment later, we were through the door, among a bunch of people in purple and orange uniforms coming out.
The inside of the dome was just as impressive as the outside. Metal, glass and tviskus. It was like walking into a big diamond safe. Maybe even too cool and too rich in grey, polished metal.
However, between us and the hall beyond was a metal security gate with one man, probably a guard, and two automated guards.
But Ruth was not daunted by this and walked towards them, with the two of us following behind her.
- Please," the guards were letting the departing staff through.
We walked up to the entrance gate and were immediately approached by two automatons.
- Ah, back," a moustachioed man in a black uniform commanded them quietly from behind. The two automatons immediately stopped and turned sideways to let the three of us through the gate.
- Let's go," said Ruth, "quickly.
"Why didn't anyone notice that the two automatons suddenly don't check at all for unusually dressed people coming into the most important building of the City Council and their stronghold?"
- They would use their hands to knock your head off like a gooseberry," Naoki commented as the automatons passed. His comment was not very reassuring, especially when walking between those two black crystalline lumps with no visible face and long arms flying in the air.
- Here," said Ruth, pulling out a round greenish crystal with a yellow arrow in the middle and showing it to us. She pointed to one of several corridors. "B-3" said the sign above the door.
"Whatever that means."
So we took this corridor in a hurry. This one obviously led somewhere upwards, because the floor was slightly higher. After a while, we passed some laboratories or similar rooms with glass walls, but the people behind them did not pay much attention to us. Soon we passed and turned a few together across a bridge over a green park or square at the bottom, and we continued on our way.
- Hey, who are you? - suddenly, a man's voice behind us.
"Shit..."
Antonio sighed and together we slowly turned around.
- I think I hear a reason to pull me out of this bag," Naoki blurted out in a rapid-fire voice.
In front of us in the corridor was a slightly balding man in a long red coat, glasses and a cigarette between his teeth. In style, he looked like Bruce Willis. But this one is nothing like him, with his broad body and his extremely long face, with a pointed chin split in two.
- It is not allowed to walk in this hall in clothes like yours! - he shouted in a shrill voice. I even covered my ears with my hands when he spoke again.
"Oh my God, why is he shrieking like that?"
- You must change into neat visitor's clothing immediately! - he shouted again. - Didn't anyone tell you that!?
"What? Clothes? He stopped us because we weren't dressed the way visitors are supposed to be dressed? He... He didn't even notice that, well, at least I'm a hell of a lot like the girl you're probably looking for??? Isn't anyone looking for me???"
But Antonio seemed to be the first to think of an answer:
- No, nobody said anything, the security just let us through like that and there was nothing else," Antonio shook his head.
"Clever!"
I immediately shook my head and made a face as if I didn't understand why I was being interviewed.
- How come they didn't tell you!? - he shouted again.
- He didn't say, because there was no one there," Antnio shrugged, "I think it's because of the siren outside.
- Oh my God. - Said the man and sighed loudly, somehow managing to sigh again as he shrieked, "Those sirens are always knocking people out... Nobody in this palace knows the simplest rules!
His squealing had almost stopped before he turned around. But after that, it got to the point where I had to scrunch up my face and cover at least one ear with my hand, even while acting.
- You know, this may sound strange, but I can't even hear his voice over his screeching," said Naoki, somehow confused, "Is he really a human being and not some harpy, siren or cat in a morgue?
"What are those harpies? The sirens aren't the same ones that screech and scream outside, are they?"
- We are very sorry! - Antonio shrugged and grabbed his blue crystal.
But it seems the use of his crystal was too late. Or it worked in the opposite way than I think it should have. For the man's complexion immediately turned, in a few moments, from pink to red and now to buff.
- Well, I'll show you now! - he squeezed his trousers and pulled something twisted out of his belt...
...And with a wave, he unwound what appeared to be a whole rope in the air and shook it.
- Gile, Antonio! - Ruth called out to us and we immediately prepared to defend ourselves.
In an instant, Naoki was lit up with all the lights, and Antonio, out of the corner of my eye, threw his guitar over his shoulder below his arm.
"Lets do this!"
However, it seems that our desires were not fulfilled in the same moment and this one has been set back at least a few.
- Aloysius, you damn fool, what the hell are you doing here! - a woman's squeaky voice.
"Oh my God! More squealing!"
I turned back immediately, raising one hand to my ear in case he was still there. Somehow I didn't expect anything good from a squealing man and now a squealing woman.
An elderly woman with grey flowing hair and trim green clothes, probably hiding her suitably sagging pansy tits, was coming towards us as if out of nowhere.
I looked at Antonio, who picked up his guitar and started to pluck notes in the air... But just a few millimetres from the strings, he stopped, because the lady didn't seem to care about us.
As if out of nowhere, she not only approached us, but immediately passed us, her eyes fixed on an old man, who turned out to be named Aloysius.
- Oh, Birute! - the man was surprised, his eyes bulging on his forehead, as he lowered his whip to the ground.
- What did I tell you not to get lost? A? What did I tell you, you old bastard?? - she shouted as she walked towards him.
"What the hell???"
I looked at Antonio with a smile. He looked just as confused as I probably looked, and was.
- I didn't get lost anywhere! I was just walking and..." the man started to make excuses, not stopping to squeal.
- You didn't do anything, for God's sake, don't tell me any stories, OK?? - the woman shouted.
And within a moment, she ran up to the man and slapped his face with the palm of her hand. The sound even echoed through the ceiling of the square, or so it seemed to me.
- Aooooh! - shouted the man!
- Wow, even with echo! - Naoki laughed.
"Aha, definitely an echo!"
I laughed at all this too, as Naoki noticed. Ruth looked at me, probably not understanding why I was laughing, but smiled herself. Maybe she thought I was laughing at the couple.
- So here you come, you little bastard! - shouted the woman again at her presumably husband, because these two really did match each other's voices, at least in pairs.
And Birutė grabbed Alojiz by the ear to turn him around! He screamed again in pain, apparently because his wife must have caused him the greatest pain in the world.
Naoki again blushed at the whole picture and went back from the green colour and the spiky corners to the pink colour with a warm, smoother surface.
The woman grabbed the man by the ear and hugged him and started dragging him back across the square, where he had caught up with us. A moment later, he was running after her, screaming and shuffling his feet like a little child. His Botag dragged sadly after him. Now Antonio was also crying.
"Well, that's silly. I thought we were going to be in trouble, but here are just two weirdos..."
- Well, that was strange," Ruth commented, putting some kind of yellow crystal back into one of her many pockets and taking out a crystal signpost. She tapped her hand in that direction as she turned to follow the arrow on the crystal:
- Aime.
Antonio immediately put his guitar back behind him and we followed her back across the square. No other life form appeared in this one, just that man and that woman.
- Like in a theatre," Naoki commented, but I didn't quite know what he was talking about - the two people, the place we were going to, or this whole seemingly secret but somehow... Incomprehensibly non-threatening operation.
"Well, but something else will happen. You can't know. Maybe those two were a test for us? Or a trap? Something else?"