The footsteps finally came to a halt right at the door and I held back from firing just in time. Rezex and Pinky stood at the door before us.
"Tess is dead. We found her body outside the lab so it is safe to assume that nobody really got out after all." Rezex said bluntly.
"Tess... Tess is dead..." Reika replied with disbelief in her voice.
I'm sure it must be devastating to find that out but there's a lot going on here and we probably don't want to get caught up in it. Everyone is already pretty exhausted the way it is.
That still leaves me with the same question though, where's Doc?
His disappearance is still one of the most concerning ones here since he has a lot of knowledge. Knowledge that can be used to make our lives worse, damnit.
Gearing up a bit more before we leave would probably be the next best move for the time being. Especially if we have such a high chance of encountering lotus/9.
"Not to dismiss Tess's death, but did you see anything or anyone else?" I asked with a bit of concern.
"No. Everyone else is dead or missing. Lotus/9 is also making more of an appearance as we speak. We won't have a chance to leave soon." Rezex answered before Pinky could.
"Then we should get whatever gear we can get." I suggested with a serious tone.
Reika was still sad but we all got as much as we could carry and hid the wire guns to the best of our abilities. Maybe the chance to come back for them will arise at some point in time.
With everything we could grab it was time to make our way out of the headquarters. There was still a safe place to go since Reika stated that Tess knew of one as well.
That's exactly where we'll go for now.
Making our way out of the building wasn't hard and we managed to avoid any interactions with Lotus/9. The car was still good so everyone loaded up and we began our trip to the other safehouse.
It feels odd that this all happened so fast but that's just how Kairox works. There's changes that happen all the time without people expecting them.
It's a tough city to live in, especially if you are trying to work with gangs.
Some are also a lot darker than others which is why they propsper a lot better than Karma.exe. Reika is a lot more on the softer side compared to some of the other leaders out there.
Most leaders would've tore the place apart looking for these guys but not Reika. I think it is better off that way anyway since she isn't that type of person.
Kairox needs people like her around to try to make it a bit better to live in.
Me on the other hand, I don't think I can show the same kindness as her when I get things up and running. People will assume I'm weak if I don't assert myself.
"Karma will recover from this. We've had setbacks before, not this bad... But we have." Pinky spoke up with a bit of disappointment in his voice.
"You guys have been around a good while so I'd think you should be able to recover." I responded with a laid back tone.
"People aren't always eager to join a gang like us, most don't even consider it a gang in all honesty." Reika chimed in, sadness in her voice.
"Gangs are a little more... Uh.. no you guys are a gang. You've done quite a bit of stuff to show that." I said before switching it up mid sentence, trying not to make it worse.
The drive took us quite far away from the original headquarters, almost to the outskirts of Kairox itself. Not many people reside in this part of the city since it isn't really safe for most.
We pulled up to an old house surrounded by a bunch of junk, it felt like something that came out from the old ages. There wasn't a lot of tech to it on the outside or the same kind of appearance our normal houses have.
Definitely wouldn't expect us to be here.
It took a little while but I finally just got done with unloading the car. It was a team effort, something we were used to already.
Inside the house was quite spacious and they actually had some computers setup for monitoring things. It was definitely a lot more obvious inside that this place was nothing like it seemed.
Small mana storage tanks were inside with computers, guns, and places to sleep as far as the eye could see.
It was a really good backup safehouse but there wasn't a whole lot of us here now.
I wouldn't dwell on it like the rest of them since this isn't really that important of a family or group to me. At least not the random ones I never met.
So I made my way to my new room to get some much needed rest. It didn't take long for me to set everything up to make it feel like home again.
Blood stained my clothes, that much was obvious from a look in an old dirty mirror. My arms were also pretty beat from that frog guy we encountered.
This has been a pretty chaotic day, didn't really expect any of this to be this bad. Betrayal I might've expected but not everything else.
Lotus/9 will always be a problem, that I'm sure of. I'll probably have to find a way to deal with them when I get on my feet a bit more.
Guys like that will never be trustworthy and I don't want to take any chances with them in the future. I won't be encountering all these setbacks like Karma has.
"Zero! Come back down here quick. We got something to show you!" Reika shouted from downstairs.