Leon was cautious and spent the past two days since his awakening inside his shelter, so he never really experienced night in Neo-Tokara while exposed in the wild.
This was a first for him.
Night descended, but the world did not turn entirely pitch-black like he expected. In a complete violation of all his expectations, at night, a silver moon appeared in the sky.
Due to getting used to day in this world where the stormy neon skylines blocked out the sunlight, he never expected to see the moon at night.
He was visibly surprised.
Apart from the moonlight that slightly illuminated the darkness, at night, a bio-luminescent fog also crawled from the darkness like living tendrils.
When this fog covered the world, Leon visibly felt breathing become more difficult but his Neural Core substituted it in real time, enabling him to adapt and breathe calmly despite the fog.
'Is this a manifestation of ADE corruption?'
He was surprised. 'I think we've already left the fringe, and it's still like this? For civilians without a Neural Core, how do they survive this?'
He kept his questions to himself.
In the night, Leon heard distant metallic roars pierce through the veil of the bioluminescent fog. Having cleared the top of the plateau to make sure no Neon Beasts were nearby earlier, Leon knew that the sounds came from below.
Sometimes, strange lights flickered on the horizon. At other times, the ground vibrated at different rhythms.
Daren could tell that he was rattled. The male Geneform smiled. "Nocturnal Neon Beasts hunt at night. So long we don't make any loud noise, we're safe on an unclaimed plateau like this one".
"Ok". Leon nodded, clearly feeling relieved.
No one took the initiative to start a conversation, so the silence stretched, making the atmosphere feel stiff. The silence also made Leon a bit uneasy.
In the end, he broke the silence after a few more minutes.
"What do you guys do?" He finally asked.
"What we do?" Talia was the one who answered; she was left confused by the question.
"Yes," Leon organized his thoughts before he explained. "The Freegrid Collective represents freedom right? But what exactly do you guys do? Is it just because Omnicore is the tyrant, and you want to seize power from them?"
"Besides, is there no order to which you guys do things?" Leon was very selective with his questions as he probed carefully.
Talia finally understood what he was driving at.
She took a moment to organize her thoughts before she replied.
She sighed. "It's not just a matter of a government, and people who are dissatisfied with the government. It goes deeper than that".
"We have things that motivate us to do what we do".
"The Freegrid Collective is the symbol of freedom around the world, but that doesn't mean we don't have a way we do things. Our mission is freedom, and in the pursuit of freedom, there has to be a modus operandi, or we would have been annihilated by Omnicore long ago".
"The higher-ups of the Freegrid Collective are divided into three internal factions that delegate open missions to members through the network".
"Open missions are missions that can be taken up by any Freegrid operative, and they have no restrictions attached".
"One of the factions is focused on technological advancement. Like I told you, the Federation have put a lot of rules in place to shackle innovation and technology, and this faction have made it their goal to rebel against this Omnicore rule".
"The pursuit of creative freedom is what drives this faction".
"Every year, there are missions to infiltrate Omnicore data vaults to steal high-value research information and experimental data. And every year, missions are released encouraging innovation and creation".
"There are lots of different cyber infiltration missions every year".
"The second faction is focused on temperance and growth. They're the ones who push for stability. They're the ones who build cities and refugee camps, govern them, and provide good living conditions for civilians who don't have the power and opportunities".
"They view stability and safety as a form of freedom. Over a century ago, their ideals pushed the narrative to build the Collective's only megacity, Iron Reef".
"Every year, they assign different missions that ensure the safety and stability of the various territories of the Collective".
Talia briefly glanced at Leon as she explained. "For example, if you don't want to face the risk of challenging a Trial, you can decide to settle down in one of the cities in Freegrid territory. As an F Rank Mechanist, with the missions available, you can easily live a good life".
"You can get married, bear kids, and take care of them without stringent rules shackling you down. That's freedom".
"The third and final faction of the Freegrid Collective is the justice faction". Talia took a deep breath. "This is the faction that I belong to and mostly take missions from".
"We believe in a different type of freedom," her voice changed, becoming serious. "We believe in delivering justice to make the world a better place".
"We deliver justice by helping captives and slaves, delivering freedom to the most rotten parts of this world where justice and freedom are forbidden".
"We are freedom fighters". She added seriously.
"Someone saved me, helping me get justice and freedom. Since then, I've made it a life goal to deliver justice and freedom to others who are captives and slaves to the Omnicore Federation".
She paused for a few seconds and in the silence that reigned, Leon internalized all that he just learned from her.
Then, she spoke again.
"Do you remember the Warlord that I told you about?"
"The one that forced you here to the fringe and is after your life? The one you hacked his system?"
Talia nodded. "I got into trouble with him because of a mission that I took".
She forced a smile. "I didn't tell you before, but the Omnicore Federation has a citizenship and Lordship system".
"The pinnacle of the Lordship system is the Director-Prime. There is only one Director-Prime, Epsilon, then there is the House of Lords' 13 Vice Presidents, the Dukes, Earls, and then the Barons and their families".
"As for the citizenship system, the pinnacle is the Councilors. There are 122 Councilors, then the middle class citizens, the poor, and then the slaves".
Leon was taken aback. "Slaves?"
Talia smiled darkly beneath her scarf. "Yes, slaves".
She took a deep breath as if she was remembering past traumas that were hidden at the depths of her mind. "Slaves are the least in the citizenship system. In most cases, they're not citizens, they have no rights".
"And you know how the citizenship system works?" She asked a rhetoric question and answered herself. "It's defined by how rich you are and the heritage of your birth. That means you can be born a slave".
At this moment, just like Leon, the others were silent, each with their own thoughts as they let Talia explain.
"In the Omnicore Federation, the poor basically have no rights, their only right is the right of not being slaves".
"As for slaves, they have no rights at all".
Talia paused, then she muttered. "I was once a slave," she smiled again darkly. "I was born a slave".
"If you're born a slave, unless you're saved, there's basically a 100% chance of you dying before the age of 6 in the Omnicore Federation".
"And if you became a slave, your options are varied, but every one of them eventually leads to one outcome, doom". Her voice echoed in the night, drilling into Leon's head.
"If you're lucky enough and have the looks, you'll be bought to serve a noble. Nobody cares if the simple definition of slave becomes sex slave. Afterall, slaves have no right. They're basically animals to be slaughtered".
"If you're unlucky, you become a labor slave for a middle-class citizen, and that has multiple meanings depending on the circumstance of your buyer. If not, you die, or you become a suicide soldier of the Omnicore Federation".
"Suicide soldiers are Ascended groomed by the Federation with no autonomy. They have their right of will stripped away from them. They have AI chips to control them and control their thoughts".
"Basically, they're the cannon fodder of the Federation's military. They're soldiers that don't fear death".
"They're just like their name suggests, they're suicide squads".
"More than 60% of the Omnicore Federation's soldiers are suicide soldiers".
"As for how the Federation get slaves, that's where the true darkness hides". Talia's gray-green eyes deepened.
"To gain favor with the Federation and to get citizenship, it's not unheard of for brothers to sell their siblings, or even for parents to sell their children as slaves to the Federation".
"There are also slave traders. They have different denominations; there are sex slave traffickers, suicide soldier traffickers, and even child traffickers".
At that moment, Daren chipped in. "I was a suicide soldier slave once. The boss saved me from a Warlord's warehouse where I was being prepared to be sold to Omnicore".
Leon's face tightened as he listened.
"This is what the justice faction fights against," Talia said in a deep voice.
"6 months ago, the justice faction posted a new mission that suspected Warlord Parasite, the leader of the Zmer gang in the Wastes for engaging in trafficking. The mission objective was to confirm if the intel was true or not".
Talia took a deep breath. "I took the mission with my crew".
"We hacked his network, and we confirmed the intel, Warlord Parasite is engaging in trafficking. And not just any type of trafficking," Talia took a deep breath, "sex slave and child trafficking".
"That was all I needed to know, and I knew exactly what step to take next, but we couldn't submit the mission result".
Talia's face darkened at this point. "Somehow, he managed to infiltrate my crew's network, hacking the LAN and directly isolating us from the global Freegrid Collective network".
"We could not submit the mission result and ask for reinforcement, and we could not escape too. The Zmer gang came for us".
'So, the story of you breaking through or becoming his mistress was a lie,' Leon silently added in his mind.
"They cornered us. And for 6 months, we've been playing a game of hide and seek with them, barely surviving".
"It's why I was forced to make the decision of attempting a Trial, I saw no other way of leaving the Wastes alive".
"If it was just me, I would've risked it, but I have a crew to carter for. I can't let them die due to my selfish ambition".
Talia finally looked at him. "So Mr. Leon, is your question answered?"
Leon nodded instinctively. "You don't need to call me Mr. again," he politely reminded before asking. "What will you do after returning?"
"I'm an E Rank NetRunner now," Talia smiled confidently. "I'll break through the blanket of his LAN cyber net, then submit the mission result before asking for reinforcement".
"Then, I'll stay and do the needful".
Her eyes flashed. "I will deliver justice to Parasite!"
[END OF VOLUME 1: AWAKENING.]