Shadow Slave

Sunny had no particular reason for this visit, apart from simply wanting to check on how the old man had settled in. From his first impression, the dormitory apartment was too small and bare-bones for someone of Professor Obel's stature.

There were five compact bedrooms connected to a shared living room, kitchen, and bathroom, with three of the bedrooms occupied by other people. He could hear a child's voice behind one door, which meant that there might have been entire families of refugees living here. In that regard, maybe the fact that the Professor and Beth each received an entire room for themselves was already a privilege.

'Still... what the hell...'

Maybe he should not have been surprised. Professor Obel was indeed a distinguished scientist who had made great contributions to humanity, but the Antarctic Center was the administrative center of the whole Quadrant. With two hundred million people concentrated in Falcon Scott, there must have been a whole lot of distinguished people waiting for their turn to be evacuated.

Beth led him to the kitchen and put a kettle on the stove. Now that they were not busy trying to keep the caravan from falling apart, Sunny noticed that the young woman looked a bit haggard in comparison to how she had been at LO49.

There were dark circles under her eyes, a slight uncertainty to her movements, and a grim slant to her brow. Beth's temper, however, had not changed one bit.

"Tell me straight... is the wall going to hold?"

Sunny lingered for a bit, stumped by the frank question.

"How should I know? Sure, it is going to hold... until it doesn't."

Beth scoffed, pouring synthetic tea into three cheap alloy cups.

"And yet you seem to be terribly calm."

Sunny scratched the back of his head in confusion.

"Do I seem calm? Well, I guess I am. I mean, what's the worst that can happen?"

The young woman stared at him with outrage.

"Death! You can die!"

thought about it

rather not die, of course. But death is definitely way better than some other things. Believe

had lived through several ghastly experiences himself, and still remembered a few of the harrowing nightmares he had been subjected to by his shadowy steed. It seemed that he had developed an abnormally high tolerance to pain and fear somewhere along the way, without

course, his aloofness would look strange to a mundane

but at that moment, Professor Obel finally appeared -

nice of you to spare time for

enjoying tea. At first, Sunny

now. Ah, but we expect a big assault tomorrow. Make sure to remain inside, and don't go to the

For some reason,

received instructions on how to behave when an air attack alert is activated. Thank you for

for a while. Eventually,

sorry to ask, Professor... but why are you still here? I would think that you would be put on the priority list

civilian in the city was designated as a member of a certain group,

long queue by a randomized algorithm. Various factors could affect one's "weight" in the algorithm, though - families with young children had a much better

which meant that non-citizens from the local version of the outskirts would be evacuated

'Figures...1

been on one of the first ships out of the harbor.

gave the old man a scathing

are you still

the young woman

nothing to do with the

a

"Is that true, Professor?"

old man looked down in

from the long weeks spent on the road. Can't I rest

time, Sunny was inclined to

bullcrap

deeper going on. Hopefully, the Professor simply did not want to leave Beth behind... which was already stupid... if he was on

he