Chapter 2

Loch City’s northern side was the Military District garrison. Aliens often flew in from the extreme cold lands year-round, launching repeated fierce assaults, so both the soldiers and the Electromagnetic Net there had much stronger defenses.

It was also the place where Horne had grown up and lived. The smooth concrete roads built from cement, the countless angry shouts and loud oaths—even now, they remained vividly clear in his memory.

He cast aside the faint reminder from the man just before he left: “Horne, here’s a bit of advice. Amnesia can sometimes be a form of protection. Don’t you think?”

“Scraaape—” His shoe sole grated harshly against the dirt, and a figure slumped in the empty expanse.

Horne took a deep breath, halted his steps, and suppressed the pain from his wound.

A cold wind carried a hint of unfamiliar scent, making him shiver. His expression gradually turned puzzled.

A vast open area lay before him, the ground mixed with yellow sand and mud. Rows of bamboo poles were thrust into the earth, bedsheets stretched between every two to form makeshift tents—or rather, what could hardly be called tents…

The Slum.

Shouts filled the air here, harsh and raspy as if the people’s throats were festering with pus. Every word pierced the eardrums, and the foul breath they spat out tainted the air with a stomach-churning stench of acid and rot.

“Who stole my blanket? Get out here, you brat—I’ll beat you to death!”

“Who the hell wants your filthy rag? You picked it up years ago and never washed it. Why not grab a new one someone tossed?”

Horne’s figure stood out awkwardly. He silently watched the scene, which clashed completely with what he had imagined.

The Military District had a large training ground. The air force trained in another area, and this was once the army’s zone. Now, that open ground lay before him, but it bore no trace of its former self.

Besides the bamboo-pole tents, the dirt held rows of small holes, signs of many more poles once driven into the ground.

In the center of the open area rose a tall log, surrounded by ashes from a recent fire.

Horne stepped back, and an impatient voice immediately barked from behind: “Hey, who’re you? New guy? Don’t stand here—scram, scram. This spot’s taken. Set up your shack somewhere else.”

Horne glanced at the man, a wave of suffocation rising in his throat.

The man’s clothes looked unwashed for years. Getting close brought a nauseating stench. He clutched a bundle of grayish-white cotton wadding, shedding bits as he walked—like slimy rotting meat sliding to the ground, trailing greasy stains as it inched toward Horne.

“Can’t you hear? Get lost!” He shouted impatiently, then twisted his head to yell elsewhere. “Who the hell threw your blanket over there? I picked it up for you! Goddamn it, who did it? So damn heartless!”

Horne held his breath until the man passed and the stirred wind dissipated. Only then did he ask coolly, in a low voice: “Is this the Military District?”

His words fell, and the clamor silenced at once. The vagrants stopped their actions and laughter in unison, their gazes converging on the stranger. Even the blanket-hugger halted abruptly, turning with a shocked look at the questioner.

Horne stood just over six feet tall. Due to long lack of exercise and sunlight, his skin was abnormally pale, his slightly curly reddish-brown hair limp over his shoulders without shine. He stood in that empty space, seeming especially small despite his soldier-straight posture.

The wind’s howl stung his face. Horne couldn’t tell if the whipping pain came from the gusts or their burning stares.

Just three seconds later, one ragged man turned to his neighbor with uncertain tone: “Did he just ask about the Military District?”

“Uh, yeah… I think so?”

Deliberate mockery cracked open like a wound. Three seconds more, and an unprecedented burst of wild laughter erupted—laughter Horne had never heard before. The vagrants howled madly, some nearly doubling over, the hundred or so voices shaking the yellow sand.

“He’s asking if this is the Military District—ahahaha!”

“You military? You wouldn’t be some army brat, would you?”

“Pah! What a filthy thing to say! You’re the army brat! Your grandpa was army! Your whole damn family!”

The vagrants noticed nothing. Horne’s expression grew icier, murder flashing in his eyes.

No one had ever mocked his identity like this to his face. They had always offered a respectful “Colonel Horne.”

When had “Military District” become a joke for fools?

Not far off, the blanket-hugger tossed the rotten mess into a companion’s shelter, snatched the cigarette from his mouth, squinted, and inhaled deeply the foul smoke into his lungs. In a corner, he eyed Horne with a darkening scowl.

A moment later, he flicked away the butt, ground it out under his shoe, and strode straight toward Horne.

The robbed smoker sneered behind him: “Hey, Wang Wudao, your grandpappy really army or what?”

Wang Wudao’s brows furrowed. He whipped around and spat in his face: “Pah!”

Wang Wudao approached Horne step by step. His expression wasn’t friendly; stubborn grime in his facial wrinkles amplified his disdain and malice.

Horne didn’t budge, watching him come. The knife in his sleeve twitched eagerly.

Wang Wudao stopped before Horne, arms crossed over his chest with a thuggish smirk. Impatiently, he asked: “You looking for the Military District?”

His gaze roamed Horne shamelessly up and down, then he rubbed his chin, nodding faintly to himself almost imperceptibly.

The vagrants behind rocked with laughter, mocking each other until they shifted to new jabs.

Not far from the dirt clearing, Horne leaned against a flower bed. Wang Wudao squatted with legs splayed wide, two meters between them. The flower bed’s fragrance failed to mask his sweat stink.

“No Military District or army around here anymore,” Wang Wudao snorted, casually plucking a blooming red flower, crushing it slowly between his fingers. “Heh, greenhorns like you never bother with history. Gullible as hell. After the army surrendered on their own back then, humans haven’t had any army left.”

Horne’s fingers paused on the knife hilt. He fell silent.

The army surrendered voluntarily? Impossible.

Though details were blank, the images, sounds, and surging emotions were etched into his body.

Never surrender. Never give up.

Laser cannons booming to the sky, the raised Electromagnetic Net defenses—every soldier had been the boldest strokes of blood in those years’ fight against the Aliens.

“For all humanity!”

“One against ten thousand!”

The roars and bellows turned into stabbing needles in Horne’s mind. Probing deeper brought nausea.

In air thick with clashing clean scent and rot, Horne breathed deeply to calm his racing heart. He turned to Wang Wudao and asked: “How do you get into the Tower?”

If the Tower was the Aliens’ zone, answers might lie there.

But the question froze Wang Wudao’s fingers. His attention shifted from the crushed petals to Horne’s face, noting the odd mental state.

Who asked something like that normally?

Horne saw the man’s expression turn strange, incredulous, then curl into a sly grin. Wang Wudao feigned casualness: “Hey, you know Hels?”

Hels? The name halted Horne’s breath for a beat.

He knew it.

His father was Slavic, so bedtime stories from childhood included tales of brave gods from Slavic myths.

He had liked Hels, the winter sun god.

“No idea.” Horne’s tone stayed flat; he always spoke concisely.

Clearly, this vagrant wasn’t asking about the myth god.

Wang Wudao burst into laughter, then answered the prior question: “Humans can’t enter the Tower, but corpses can. Of course, I know a way to get you in alive.”

“What?”

Wang Wudao hopped down from the flower bed, clapped his filthy hands from fiddling with the plants, and grinned crookedly: “Wanna know? Kid, I got terms for the trade.”

Horne stood expressionless, fully sheathing the knife in his sleeve.

Conditions were ideal. He distrusted free favors; a deal suited him better.

The thought sparked a fleeting water lily in his mind, and unbidden despair flooded his senses.

Loch City differed utterly from his memories. Human population had plummeted back then; even two- or three-story standalone homes in residential areas stood mostly empty. Now high-rises towered, mimicking the prosperity from books of a century ago, before the Alien invasion.

Recon Drones occasionally swept overhead, their sharp whine fading.

Wang Wudao’s eyes followed a drone afar then back, lips twitching mockingly: “The Tower’s everywhere, ha… friggin’…”

Horne tilted his head up, fingers clenching tight. Unease rooted deep in him, like a sprout about to break soil.

All unknown, unknown—unknown bred fear. Even swallowing felt choked. Worse, his wound drained his strength. Long without food, water, or rest, the world spun before his eyes.

“Humans can’t enter the Tower. Try forcing it—haha—you’ll get shredded to mush by Recon Drones, then the Alien guards at the door eat your corpse.” Wang Wudao exaggerated, voice dropping like scaring a child. “But you could disguise as a human-form Alien. Problem is, Aliens scan your Mask, pull your info, see your real face.”

Everyone on the street wore a Mask, oblivious to faces beneath others’.

Horne recalled the earlier man’s words: The point was, who knew what lay under your Mask?

Wang Wudao’s raspy voice droned on like sandpaper waves blurring in Horne’s brain.

“Legend has it, one guy in this city makes double Masks. Tower tech scans only the outer layer now. He could make your inner one Alien-like. They scan—hey, you’re one of them. Smooth entry to the Tower.”

Wang Wudao’s words unsettled Horne, like needles pricking every pore. He fought discomfort: “Who?”

“But that guy’s temperamental, total nutjob. No one pokes him, not even Aliens.” Wang Wudao ignored the question, tone turning grim. “Heard once, someone wanted a double Mask. He was in a mood, killed the guy instead. Heh, kid—scared yet?”

He mimed slitting a throat just as an unmanned bus whooshed by, its heat wave slicing the air.

Horne swayed an instant, then snapped back to rigid poise.

Under Alien invasion and restrictions, human tech stalled around 2050 levels. Transit, lights, logistics, city ops—all the same old stuff. Some even regressed.

Wang Wudao’s lips smacked on, words fuzzy in Horne’s ears: “Double Masks are just legend anyway. No one knows if they exist. Even if they do, not for weaklings like you who’d fold at a push.”

Better Masks cost more; pricier ones let you fake thriving. Some spent lifetimes scraping for a fancy gold-trimmed one, fooling folks into thinking they’d had it all. Folks like them? Lifetime vagrants, or…

Intersecting roads split the city into countless blocks, each a gray facade of lies.

Crossing a main street, Wang Wudao halted before a deep-gray high-rise, motioning Horne to stop: “This is the place.”

Horne’s swirling thoughts snapped back. Another Recon Drone streaked past behind them.