They ran around the block where they entered the underpass to reach the subway gate in Zone 4. Sweats dripping to their skin as they hardly ran away from their pursuers.
Their footsteps echoed when they entered the hallway going to the platform. A mild sound of the flickering lights and sounding statics on radio speakers broke the silence of the underground area. In that silence, they can hear their own heavy breaths.
"We're finally here..." Ken said, catching his breath. His face is swollen red as he takes deep breaths to ease his fatigue. He rested his palms to his knees and shook his head to clear his thoughts. "I guess we left them on our tracks."
"I really hope so. Now, what do we do, Markus?" Brent's leg turned to lead. He's breathing like he's in a high-altitude area and his skin is pricking the cold. His fingers are twitching as his head slowly turned blank until he heard Markus saying,
"Get a grip, you two!" Markus threw his hands on their shoulders.
The two stared at him and controlled their breaths. They tried their best to get their feet on the ground.
"We should get going and proceed to the platform," Markus said. His vision is also fuzzy and he felt like his world is turning but he knew he needs to move forward.
"Ahh, you're right."
They arrive at the lobby and were greeted by People who dropped to the floor with all the mess you can think of.
"Even infants lie on the floor..." Brent muttered in a shaky voice. "I hope they're not injured, right?"
"I hope so. But you see, Parents nowadays rely too much on technology that even infants were given some sort of device to keep them entertained or looked after when their guardians have to attend to something else." Markus explained. He looked around to emphasize his point. " Take a look on that Mom with the stroller."
Ken and Brent looked at where Markus pointed and saw what he was referring to.
A candy pink baby stroller sits beside a bench where its parent is seated. At the cover, instead of plushy stars or toys were hanging, hanged a cookie box-size device for the baby to see.
"See that? The kid was watching something on the device attached to his stroller because his mom is busy with another something. " Markus said. "They're waiting for the train to arrive ang might be going somewhere for business."
They saw a laptop wide open on the table of the parent and realized what was Markus was implying.
"People are very occupied with their jobs, their living, that they rely on something to attend to their children. I bet that kid is watching Super Martley Bro and Friends as his mom worked on her job. Tsk." Markus muttered. "And they blame the kids for not talking much or spending more time with their parents. What a crap." he twitched his lip in disgust.
Ken knew they'll reach a disagreement at the moment they'll snap their anger out so he decided to break the ice.
"Ne, Markus? Do we need a ticket to pass through that gate there?" Ken humbly asked. He was quite flustered on what he saw around the subway Station so he tried to change the subject. Sweat drip from his temple, his heart is beating so fast.
"Do you think someone will sell us tickets at this moment, Ken?" Brent asked, placing his hand on his hips. He rides the wave that Ken set.
"Ahh, no." Ken replied blankly.
"That is why we need to trespass to get to the train. I need to reach the nearest place to Orion." Markus said after taking a breath.
"But, if no one is manning the ticket booth, it can be thought that no one is manning the trains, too, right?" Ken discerned. He unconsciously took a step back. He felt a cold air kissing his spine.
"Yeah." Markus said with a grin.
"Is that even an answer?"
They crossed the gate by jumping right above it and went straight to the platform line.
Aside from the people lying around, there was no trace of havoc happened at the subway station. The lights were fully functioning, the LCD's and Monitors are all doing fine. Even the radio in the subway kept singing "Put your hands up in the air, gshshsh we don't care. Put your hands up in the air air air, whoooooaahoo."
Trains. One of the transportation means that the Green Industries developed throughout the course of history. Their forefathers were among those ruffians that tried to own what the Ginsei's have but were turned into their friends along the way. They managed to own a meteor part, 790 miles away from the origin and turned it into what they have now. These trains were computer regulated, Astro seismic wave-powered, but manually controlled. Its body is made up of iron cultivated from the remains of the old earth but was strengthened using the New Earth's technology, the GoldStar system. Its rails spread across the city of Aurum and are one of the primary means of transport in the Origin and other cities.
Four trains appeared in front of them. Two trains with no visible passenger sat beside each other facing East. Another train from the east approaching the platform was meters away from the platform. The brakes might have functioned and stopped the train immediately after sensing a malfunction.
Markus saw the train they should ride on. They saw the train's head slightly at the middle of the platform, still following its rails, facing the west.
"So, how are we going to ride that train, Markus?" Ken asked for the 2nd time.
Markus went down the platform and walked casually across the rails towards their train.
"We're going to drive it. C'mon the control cart in on this way." Markus said, skipping his way towards his destination.
"Are you sure about this, bro?" Ken anxiously followed him. "I mean, do we even know how to drive a train? I've only ridden a bike all my life." he looked around, watching out from danger.
"Me neither, I don't know how to drive this Markus." Brent waved his hand in disagreement. "Do you know how to drive it?"
"What are you saying?" Markus stopped and turned his back towards his friends. He stared at them with sparkling eyes. "Didn't we control a train at ROA before?" he smiled.
"What are you saying? Controlling an RPG machine in V-world is way different from controlling one in real life, Markus!!!" Ken exclaimed. "What the hell are you thinking?!"
"Okay, so here's a question." Markus continued and open the cabin door above him. He stepped inside the train's control room and surveyed the buttons lying around.
"What's your question?" the two said in hesitation. They remained outside the door, looking upon Markus who's standing in front of the controls.
"How do you think the programmers program the machines for transportations in a V-world." Markus turned the train on and countless buttons turned to life. Beeping sounds simultaneously came to life like an orchestra.
"Hey.. hey.. hey.." Ken warned but his words were neglected.
"They patterned the controls from the real world and created the algorithm to make it function," Brent answered anxiously. He grabbed his own thumb and brought it near his chin.
"That makes it easier." Markus smiled and pulled a lever. "They were already pre-programmed."
"Oi, so you saying we do it like in a game?" Ken asked, hopping inside the cabin. He was hoping to hit some nerve on their friend but he just couldn't do it. He's still trying to convince him not to do it.
"Is there any other way?" Markus replied, facing Ken. He hit another button and gave a grin.
"Nahh." Ken said.
"Ja...ja... If we'll do it like in a game. Who's going to drive?" Brent asked with his eyes flustered. He still stood outside the train, looking at his friends inside facing the controls.
"Is that even a question?" Markus stared at him like offering him a candy without handing it to him.
Brent looked at Ken for help but he turned away.
"You're kidding me right?!" Brent exclaimed. His eyes were flustered.
"No. Markus is pretty serious and so do I." Ken dragged him inside.
He tried to struggle but he's got no choice but to take the wheels.
"Were counting on you, Brent. Of course, I'll help on reprogramming the controls so we can really make this thing move." Markus said and begin to connect a cable from his laptop and connected it to the slot in the control board.
"I'm not so confident about this plan, too, Brent. But, knowing Markus, he'll pull something out that will impress us. Have faith." Ken said. He stood behind in front of the door that connects to the other cabins for lookout.
Markus closed the door and programmed their controls. He sat beside the lever on the floor and connected his laptop at the port near it.
"So, I guess we need the map of the city to navigate this thing, right?" Ken looked under and over the controls to find a map.
"Ohh, I almost forgot that!" Markus looked at his friends and entered a code in his laptop and a virtual map appeared on the glass window shield.
"We need to at least be familiar with this to know what rails to take to get us to Zone 3." Ken traced his finger on the map.
"Aurum," Brent muttered. "What a beautiful city."
"Don't try to get so sentimental here, Brent." Ken rolled his eyes. Still trying to figure out their map.
"It's not like that." Brent pouted. "I mean, look at the whole city. Isn't it quite symmetrical?"
Markus and Ken tried to understand what Brent was saying and they realized what their friend was implying.
"I haven't had any idea about this before." Markus slowly stood from the floor and stared at the map.
"I too," Ken muttered. "Now when you see it like this, Aurum was really quite symmetrical in the arrangements of the Zones."
"I know," Markus said. "For all the 25 Zones in the city, the Ginsei's have arranged it quite well."
"It's easy to read through." Brent said. "With Zone 1 at the center, the origin, the rest of the Zones span away from it with symmetrical sizes and distances."
"Yeah." Markus replied. "The city was divided into 4 quadrants: Quadrant 1 to Quadrant 4."
"Each quadrant is composed of Zones, thus having 6 Zones in a Quadrant," Ken said.
"And the Zones were arranged like an expanding like a Fibonacci sequence from the origin," Markus said.
"Well, Fibonacci might be the right term but Markus..." Brent said with a frown. "I just see it as a pyramid. I mean look..." he pointed at Quadrant 1 in the map. "An apex connected to the origin, 2 zones are connected at the apex, then 3 zones are connected to that 2 zones. It's just like a pyramid."
Markus looked at Brent with a blank expression. "If that's how you see it. It's also fine," he said. "Anyways, the city is in circular form so the outlier Zones of that so-called pyramid is a curve."
"Q4 has zones 14, 16, 18, 20, 22 where the seaport is, and 24. Q3 has zones 15, 17, 19, 21, 23 where the airport is, and zone 25. Q2 has zones 2, 4, 6 where our school is located, 8, 10 where the Sea Mall is, and zone 12. Q1 has zones 3, 5, 7, 9, 13, and Zone 11 where Dave and Cassandra need to go." Ken dictated.
"All those apexes that Brent mentioned are the Business area, where busy streets and other relative offices are located. Zones 16 to 19 are Industrial areas where factories are located. Zones 20, 21, 24, and 25 are agricultural areas where the city grew most of its crops and harvest the water we need. The rest in the Quadrant 2 are academic areas where schools and universities were located except for 1 school. All the zones not mentioned are all residential areas." Markus continued to explain.
"That was pretty awesome," Brent muttered.
"And we need to go here." Ken pointed at the map. "Zone 3, where our rat is, right Markus?" he looked at his friend and he nodded in agreement.
"I kinda memorized the route," Brent said, though partly nervous.
"I'll take your word for that," Markus said and hit the final key he needed the train howled.
The two were startled but somehow felt ecstatic. the Train moved on its rails forward and the music was also turned on.
"See?" Markus smirked. "That's quite easy, right?" he lifts himself and stood while holding his gadget.
"Don't jinx it please." Brent pleaded. He looked in front and take the controls seriously like how he does in playing Pacman.
"But we'll going to ride this listening to "move ya body, move ya body, dance with ya body..." all the way" Ken laughed. "I just hope no one will move their bodies and attack us."
The three exchanged looks and felt a cold sweat on their napes.