After pausing for a bit, Enyo re-collected herself and chased after Ace. She followed him into another floor that had no walls or doors, it was just one big room. In the room, there was a large desk at the center with many screens surrounding the center, covering the entire room.
Ace walked up to the desk and nostalgically touched the keyboard. This was the first bit of positive emotion he had reflected during this entire time.
Enyo spoke at this time, "Isn't this nice Ares? Why don't you come back?"
Ace's eyes turned hard again as he sneered at Enyo. "You are undeserving of my presence. The one who pushed me away from this place was you."
Enyo gave Ace a sad and hurt look. "It wasn't me! I just wanted to give you everything you wanted. But now look at you! You are going around, hopping into planes which you hate and being a chauffeur for that wretch...Lilith."
Ace gave Enyo a sharp look, "How did you know what I have been doing? You've been tracking me?"
Enyo immediately shut her mouth and looked down at her feet as she twiddled her fingers. She had the exact image of a young child being scolded, but no one at the organization would be fooled by her looks. Everyone knew exactly how lethal she was.
"I wanted to know you were safe, besides you know I can recognize your signature hacking anywhere. Trinity found you and expected you to return with that crazy scientist lady from WHO but you didn't." Trinity was the name of Aida's former master who betrayed her and sent assassins after her. It was also the person that Aida intended to kill.
Ace turned away from Enyo and faced the screens. "Leave. I don't want to see you."
Enyo bit her lip and walked back into the elevator. She knew that the old him would've hit her or tried to kill her by now, he had softened a lot.
Moving to another floor of the same building, Trinity was staring at a map of the city with his arms behind his back. "What did the Master say?"
Enyo glared at Trinity, "If only you had killed her that time, we wouldn't be in this mess right now. He doesn't even want to look at me."
Trinity didn't have any change of expression when Enyo blamed him. Instead, he simply said, "What now?"
She had a sinister grin on her face as she responded, "Now, we hunt. Do you have the location?"
Expecting this question, Trinity nodded and pointed at the map. "Based on the activity from our Master and the various cameras, we have determined that this is the location Lilith is staying at."
"Good." Enyo turned around and walked out.
Before she could leave, Trinity stood ramrod straight and requested, "I would like to go as well."
Enyo stopped walking and turned to smirk at him, "You had your chance and you failed." Then she left.
Unbeknownst to her, Trinity had an extremely sinister glint in his eye as he watched her leave.
***
Completely unaware of the machinations happening in the organization, Aida and the others continued to research and look for more information. Their initial research surprised both Aida and Artemis. They learned that information about infected within the city walls was very limited. "The people here don't even know the most basic information about the infected," Artemis remarked.
Aida looked towards Artemis with surprise to which Artemis rolled his eyes in faux offense, "Hey, my ma and I may have lived in a poor neighborhood but she wanted me to grow up to be something. Every day, she would force me to attend classes and then give me extra homework at night. It was miserable for both of us."
Aida's cold contenance softened slightly. "Your mother was a smart lady."
Artemis coughed before diverting the conversation back to City M. "Why don't the people here know anything about us?"
Aida tapped her chin before responding, "I suspect it's because they want to control the situation. Everyone is afraid of the unknown. They chose to conceal the information to keep people from sneaking out past the wall and doing something foolish like trying to obtain superpowers."
Artemis nodded at this. If he were to find out that he had a chance to obtain a superpower, he would sneak out even if the odds were only 0.01% chance of survival. Thinking about this, he froze as he realized something. "Aren't we infecting everyone in this city by coming in?" He panicked as he thought about this.
Aida couldn't help but raise an eyebrow. "You're just thinking about this now?"
"I don't want to turn this utopia into a hell hole!" Artemis quickly lifted his shirt to cover his mouth as a way to prevent his germs from spreading everywhere. He looked pretty silly.
Aida chuckled. "Don't worry, I might dislike these people but I don't have any intention of killing everyone. After you become a Reaper or a Variant, you are no longer contagious. Only the Enraged are still contagious and they're all outside."
Sighing in relief, Artemis let go of his shirt that was covering his mouth. They continued to read through the information they had found so far.
Meanwhile, Xiao Ai and Artie had been monitoring the network activity and scanning the radios to pick up on any information. They found out, through some illegal hacking of other people's devices, that there was a massive lockdown at the wall and that the base had caught some Variants.
"Mama Mama! This is bad! Lucifer and doggy (Ace) may have been caught!" Xiao Ai re-emerged from the laptop and called out to Aida.
Turning serious, Aida looked through the information that Xiao Ai pulled up. Just moments ago, there was a citywide alert posted by General Mills to all the higher authorities within the city. It stated that there were potentially 16 infected on the loose either in the base or in the city. He ordered the city's law enforcement to ID every suspicious person on the street and report them immediately.
This was a new development. She hadn't expected so many people to follow behind her footsteps and sneak onto the base.