The South Ark Park is not exactly far from their home but with Lia's pace it may be dark before they get home.
'Let's just take a taxi for today. we need to get home before dark, who knows what will happen next' thought Link.
They usually take public transportation home and sometimes they would just walk home and then buy a couple or dozen varieties of snacks on their way home which means there will be no room for dinner. With Link's financial capabilities, they are only able to do it once a month or once on a three-week basis. it's not because he doesn't really have any money but raising a kid takes a lot of money and you still need a moderate amount of savings in case things go rough.
"Lia, do you want to take a taxi home?"
"Okay."
Link sees an unoccupied taxi and waves his hands at the taxi. with their in-built system, the taxi AI would recognise him as a potential passenger. The law hasn't permitted a fully automated self-driving vehicle without any human behind the wheel to control it. For various reasons.
"Good afternoon sir, where is your destination?" greet the driver with a smile.
"Take us to 11 east street Spruce Hill."
"To that new apartment with almost non-existent walls sir?"
"Yes that one, also could you choose a route that will take us there the fastest?" urged Link subtly.
"I wonder why the architect even built a nonsense wall like that? It is just over a metre tall, isn't it? I bet kids could scale that wall easily. The building is also pretty new, around 3 or 4 years old, isn't it? So, is the lease expensive there?"
Link listens to the driver blabbering without interrupting his passionate knowledge of chat-away to kill time.
Link had been trying to call Rheatt but he didn't pick up his calls which he assumed were still hovering over the water. So he changes his aim and calls Hugo. a few rings are all it takes for Hugo to pick up.
Before Hugo could say anything, he said his part pressingly "Could you fetch Rheatt and go to my house as quickly as possible? I'm alarmingly in need of your help right now." and he ended the call as if he was just giving an order or telling a joke to his friend for them to come over.
❖❖❖
On the other side of the call, Hugo, who just finished his bath and getting ready to head out to the bar where he usually 'busks' using his old trusty Saxophone given to him as his birthday present from his parents that had passed away from the disastrous earthquake a few years back.
Hearing the one-way talk from Link, Hugo knew that something had happened and he is pretty sure 100 per cent it is a very serious matter. Either Link has killed someone or he is in the process of killing one... or maybe planning for one.
Link may have the looks of a harmless man plastered all over his character. even someone close to him would think he is an anti-confrontational type of a guy but don't let his goofy-ass self fool you. Hugo, Rheatt, and a few others knew exactly what kind of harmless person he is.
Hugo thought of a phrase his grandfather had said to him long ago, "looks can be deceiving, one may look harmless doesn't mean one is weak." and that is exactly the saying that so snugly fits his best friend, Link.
Hugo changed and used a black hoodie and black jeans with pairs of black sneakers. considering the urgency he takes a taxi and goes straight to the beach where the damn sea otter surfs his time away. After he met with Rheatt, they could use his bike to get to Link's apartment in under 30 minutes.
In the taxi, the driver keeps on spamming his chat-away skill while Link responds to things he knows.
"So about the lease, how much is it?" After a couple of times while circling and jumping around the topics the driver still insisted on coming back to his previous question.
"The owner gives a 15 per cent discount on the lease for the young professionals and another 25 per cent is subsidised by the government. Also, the building owner stated that the cap for receiving or getting the discount is 35 years old."
"Oh man. I doubt I would even get the subsidised program furthermore that age cap is so tight. So, how many tenants are in that building? Are they all young folks like you?"
"Yeah. Some of them are a family of three and a family of four, and some of them are a group of friends who lease the apartment together as a group. There are different kinds of people living there."
True to his skill, the spamming of chat-away really does shorten the time, mirage-ly. They indeed arrive before dark. Link paid the taxi using his bracelet-form electronic wallet, then they got off the taxi and Lia said her goodbyes to the driver with a big wave. Watching that, Link's lips also raise, putting up a smile on his face. But that smile is short-lived.
[Integrating Akashic Record on the world known as Maia is completed. Starting Phase 1... Beginning to awaken the apex species' innate trait. Commencing the Emergence sequence.]
Link's right foot stops in the air as if he were a goat that got spooked and turned into immovable prey. The thing that appeared in his mind was a language he never heard before. So foreign, yet he intuitively or inherently just knew what it meant. That thing isn't in the form of a voice like the one you usually had at the back of your mind but it was like a process of thought that had been injected directly into your mind instantly as if it was yours from the beginning.
Collecting his thoughts, Link looks at Lia. She tilted her head confused about what just happened, and based on that, Link knew that whatever happened to him a moment ago also happened to his niece.
"Let's go inside, aren't you hungry? I'm starving. What should we eat for dinner tonight?" he urges her to get inside the apartment periphery and pat her head.
When he also wanted to go within the falsity of the walls, at the edge of his field of vision he could see the view of the taxi getting far away and a ripple pop in the air, which made him turn his focus in that direction. A being suddenly emerges from that ripple. A furry creature that stands on its two legs, like other bipedal primates but it has such a different facial structure compared to other normal primates.
Fortunately or unfortunately for the newly materialised creature, it stands on the road and turns into road kill. He didn't check if that creature was dead or alive, he shouted at his niece to run.
Bad idea. Less than ten metres away she falls, she hasn't had the chance to cry and Link picks her up and then runs the way he did before. He runs while snapping his head around, left and right, and occasionally he looks up in case the same thing shows up like what he had witnessed.
When he finally gets inside the building, his gaze automatically turns to a room where the manager of the apartment is usually sitting. He can see her dog but the said person is nowhere to be seen.
He opens the glass door and looks around the room once again but he can't still see her around. This is supposed to be a recreational room for all the tenants and also a kind of office area for the apartment manager.
'Where the heck is that lady? She usually hangs around in this particular room as she didn't like it when the tenant knocked on her door.' stopping himself from thinking too much, Link decides to just yell his lungs out.
"Daria, where are you!? It's an emergency situation!" he yelled in one breath.
*Thud!*
A sound soon followed by "ouch!" echoed from the corner of the room.
"What happened? What is the emergency?"
"What are you doing down there?"
"I was glueing a piece of ornament that broke o- wait you said emergency? What the heck happened?"
"Monsters start popping out on the street and I don't think it is a one-thing thing. First, we need to gather all the tenants that are in the building here right now."
"Haha very funny, now I will get a bump on my head because of your joke. Are you trying to piss me off?"
"Fuck no! ahem- I'm not joking when our life could be in jeopardy at any moment. First, inform all the tenants in the building to gather here, we might need to create a temporary blockade so whatever is outside won't be able to get in or give options for us to fight back. Also, when they get outside of their door, tell them to at least bring a weapon or whatever thing that can be used as a weapon and if they see a ripple-like phenomenon happen in the air- run or get others."
Daria sees Link's sweaty forehead and pale parched lip knew that he wasn't joking around but it was still too hard for her to accept. She just thought that this young man has a problem with his brain.
"Why the fu- uh, are you standing still like that? I AM NOT JOKING AROUND!" he stated and stared dead straight into her eyes. "didn't you feel a shockwave-like thing less than an hour ago? I think that was the trigger or aftereffect and more importantly, didn't you get that message-like thing on your freaking mind?"
"Ugh, so I am not daydreaming, am I? Okay, I will call everyone here to come down. take a seat, and get yourself a drink, you don't look so good."
"For fuck's sake! who would feel so good after the thing I just experienced?"
"Uncle are you okay?" chirp Lia in.
"Yeah, I'm okay now. Thank you for asking." answered Link with a smile.
"Okay, then I'll go play with Seeli."
Before Lia was able to run off towards the black and white dog, he held his niece's hand and prevented her from running. She turns her head toward her uncle asking why he stops her with just her action of tilting her head to the side.
"Seeli come. Sit. rollover. stay. ok, he seems fine, you can play with him but don't get too far from me."
"Okay!"
Link needed to make sure the silly dog did not go rabid or devolve into its primal state. He didn't know if the wasp he killed before was a mutated wild insect or if it came out from the ripple thingy. He still wasn't sure whether to let his niece play with the dog but if he prevented her from playing and staying still around him, she would have felt his anxiety.
A couple of minutes later the tenant starts to show up. Some were in their homely outfit and only two person were holding some sort of weapon in their hand.
"Is everyone here?" Link asks Daria.
"Based on the entrance log, Abraham on the third floor isn't here."
"The shut-in kid? We might need to check on that kid later. Did you explain what's going on to them?"
Link glances at barely 7 available and possibly fighting force, plus a toddler in his mother's warm embrace.
"Now that we are here, let me ask you, did you receive that announcement-like thing?" Seeing them giving a positive response, Link continues with his words.
"If Ms Daria hasn't said this to you before, I will tell you, guys, what I saw. It was a bipedal creature with a grey coat of fur. I don't know what kind of creature it was but it is one hundred per cent unfriendly. Also, we don't know how long we get before we are deprived of our amenities. I doubt it won't take long. so order food and water as much as you possibly can and from a different store. We don't know if the AD (autonomous delivery) drone is still working or not but we'll see when my orders arrive. Though I don't know if it will be too late or not, just know that I won't share unless I have a surplus."
They were pretty quiet before but now, the room turns ghost-quiet and cold except for the occasional bark of the dog playing with its girl playmate.
"So what should we do now?" asked the mother with a toddler in her embrace.
"You should ask your husband to get home asap and also tell him to order dozens of medications he thinks will be useful in this situation. I bet you could exchange the medication later on thru barter of sorts with others."