Apocalyptic Rebirth: With a repairman system space, she rises again.-Chapter 678: Cost of peace.
Sunshine entered into the passenger seat and told Day to speed off to Westbrook. Hades was already there, overseeing inspections for the newly constructed malls. It was a routine but critical task: they had to verify that every floor and foundation matched the original blueprints before the public was allowed inside.
In truth, it was simply because Hades did not trust Sheldon not to cut corners in his projects. It was an apocalypse after all, and there were no government assigned building inspectors.
She had barely gone far when the raw, jagged edge of a shouting match that made the pristine marble floors vibrate reached her ears.
"I have already told you, you cannot just take him! The committee has to decide that!" Hades’ voice boomed, echoing off the vaulted ceilings.
Sunshine raced in the direction of his voice, worried that he had encountered trouble. Hades looked less like a foreman inspecting a mall and more like a man ready to tear a structural pillar out of the ground to use as a club when she found him.
She stepped into the center of the atrium, her boots clicking sharply. "Take who?"
The shouting stopped. Dr. Roy Fassbender, a man who usually looked like he’d been pressed and folded into a neat suit, was currently red-faced and disheveled. He turned to Sunshine, his eyes wide with a mix of desperation and righteous fury.
"Mrs. Quinn, thank goodness," Roy breathed, though his tone was anything but relieved.
Hades gestured wildly toward Roy. "Our guest here thinks he can just check out prisoners like they’re library books. He wants Ceaser Rommel."
Sunshine felt a cold prickle at the back of her neck. "Ceaser! Why on earth would you want him?"
Roy stepped forward, his voice dropping into a low, trembling register. "I encountered him at the White House, Mrs. Quinn. Some months ago. He had been locked in a bunker. Stuck. When we found the survivors down there, they didn’t thank us for rescuing them, instead.... they begged us to kill Ceaser."
Sunshine frowned, her arms crossing over her chest. "Begged? Why? What happened in that bunker?" 𝕗𝚛𝚎𝚎𝐰𝗲𝗯𝗻𝚘𝚟𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝕞
"Because Ceaser is a monster masquerading as a leader," Roy said, his voice cracking. "He would tie chains around people_ innocent people_ and shove them out into the mist. He wanted to see if the terror or the toxins would ’awaken’ their abilities. He treated human lives like lottery tickets. Most of them didn’t win. They just died screaming in the mist while he watched the monitors.
So, someone that awakened sealed him inside the bunker with other survivors. Worse is that as the oxygen in the bunker decreased, he started to kill them off one by one to increase his own chances of survival."
A heavy, suffocating silence fell over the mall. Sunshine closed her eyes, and for a moment, the only thing she could hear was the hum of the air conditioning system. There were just too many bad people doing too many bad things in the apocalypse.
Fury, hot and thick like molten lead, surged through her veins. She thought of the people that had died unfairly and the idea of someone using that agony as a laboratory experiment made her stomach turn.
"The same was done to him, we threw him into the mist," Roy confessed, his gaze dropping to the floor. "Just like he did to them. We were certain he was dead. We hoped he was dead. Imagine my surprise today morning when I heard the rumors that he was sitting in your prison, breathing your air, eating your food."
"So, he is superhuman." Sunshine almost laughed. Telling the men to nullify his abilities had been the right decision indeed.
Roy looked up, his eyes hard. "I will give up anything to take him to Finch. Ceaser didn’t just experiment on people to make this imaginary super army, he shot President Finch. He attempted to assassinate a seating president!
It is treason. Whoever brings that man to the President will be rewarded beyond measure. He needs to face justice by at least one of the people he tried to kill."
Hades let out a short, sharp scoff that echoed like a gunshot. "So that’s the play? You want the reward? Or are you just looking for a golden ticket in Eden?"
"It’s not just the reward, Hades!" Roy snapped, his composure slipping again. "Think about the politics and troubles, I am 100% certain that Ceaser is already plotting to take this base. And If fortress four hands him over, it’s a gesture of goodwill. It’s a token of peace between our territories. That trade deal everyone is so worried about. It would go through without a single hiccup. You’d be giving Finch the one thing he wants more than a functioning power grid: revenge."
Hades held his hand up. "Nobody is worried about the trade deal. You need us more than we need you."
Sunshine let out a long, weary sigh. She rubbed the bridge of her nose, feeling the weight of a thousand decisions pressing down on her. One thing she knew for sure was that she didn’t want Ceaser in her base. The man was making Carson antsy.
An antsy Carson was a dangerous Carson.
Besides, she had other things to do, like closing the cracks in space and getting her inheritance.
She pulled Hades closer to her said and said in a tired voice, "Honestly, Roy? I have a list of problems three miles long, and Ceaser Rommel doesn’t even make the top fifty. I don’t care what happens to him. If he’s a bargaining chip that buys us some kind of silk road, then he’s the most useful he’s ever been in his life." She looked at Hades, who was still uncertain. "We’ll do it. But I’m not just handing him over and waving goodbye. I’m sending a team with you back to New Eden. I want our people on the ground to study the place, see how they operate, and make sure we aren’t walking into a trap before any ink hits the paper on that trade deal."
Dr. Roy’s face transformed. The tension drained out of him, replaced by a smile that was almost giddy. "In my opinion, Mrs.Quinn, the deal is already signed. President Finch will be ecstatic."
"Don’t get ahead of yourself, like my husband said, you need us more than we need you. At the end of it all, the final decision to trade lies with us." Sunshine cautioned. "My aircraft will take you back. You leave in an hour. Have your bags packed and Ceaser crated up. Treat him like hazardous waste_ which isn’t far from the truth."
