Twelve hours after Gluttony's broadcast, District 9 had ceased to be a city. It had become a pressure cooker screaming for release.
The safe house, a reinforced concrete bunker on the edge of the industrial zone, was trembling. Dust sifted down from the ceiling with every roar from the street outside.
THUD. CRASH.
A Molotov cocktail smashed against the steel shutters, the heat radiating through the metal.
"Death to the terrorist!" a voice screamed, amplified by a megaphone. "Give us Vance! Give us bread!"
Inside, the air was stiflingly hot. The power cut meant no ventilation. The darkness was absolute, save for the thin beams of searchlights sweeping through the cracks in the barricades.
Cerberus stood by the door. The boy was vibrating with tension. His hand was white-knuckled on the hilt of his tactical knife, his eyes darting to the thermal readings on his visor showing the heat signatures of hundreds of bodies pressing against the walls.
"They are breaching the perimeter," Cerberus growled, a low, animalistic sound. "I can go out. I can kill the front line in three minutes. The rest will scatter."
"No," Vance said sharply. He was peering through a rusted peephole, observing the chaotic sea of humanity outside. "Put the knife away. If you kill one of them, we lose."
"They want to kill you," Cerberus argued, confused by Vance's refusal to defend himself.
"They don't want to kill me. They want to eat. They are just being pointed in my direction."
Vance closed his eyes and took a deep breath through his nose.
The smell of the mob was a physical assault. It was a thick, suffocating blanket of Dry Dust, Stale Sweat, and the sharp, metallic tang of Dehydration. It was the scent of desperation—tragic, raw, and honest.
But Vance wasn't looking for the honest smell. He was hunting for the lie.
He focused, filtering out the fear, peeling back the layers of the olfactory profile like skinning a fruit.
There.
Amidst the dusty despair, he caught sharp, rhythmic spikes of a different scent. It smelled like Fermented Acid—sour, pungent, and active.
It wasn't the smell of fear. It was the smell of Calculated Malice. It was the scent of adrenaline mixed with deceit—the sweat of men working a job, not fighting for survival.
Vance traced the scent trails in the dark.
He saw a man in rags standing on top of a rusted car, waving a torch and leading the chant. Smell: Sour Acid. He saw a woman near the front, weeping loudly, shouting that Vance stole her child's ration. Smell: Sour Acid. He saw three muscular men at the back, passing out rocks to teenagers and pointing them at the windows. Smell: Sour Acid.
"Agitators," Vance whispered, his eyes cold. "Greed has salted the earth. He didn't just cut the food; he planted paid actors in the crowd to direct the anger."
Vance shifted his gaze further down the street.
Parked safely behind the riot line was a massive, armored tanker truck bearing the golden insignia of [Greed]'s banking consortium.
A thug with a shock baton stood on top of the tanker, shouting through a PA system. "Fresh water! 500 Credits a liter! Special discount for patriots who help flush out the rat!"
"500?" Cerberus hissed. "It was 5 yesterday."
"That's the game," Vance stepped back from the window, adjusting his cuffs. "Hunger Marketing. They create an artificial scarcity, jack up the price to break the people's spirit, and then give them a target to blame for their suffering."
"If we go out there and fight, we prove them right. We become the villains killing starving citizens. We become the monsters they claim we are."
"Then what do we do?" Cerberus asked, frustration edging into his voice. "The door won't hold forever."
"We don't fight the customer," Vance checked the charge on his stolen energy pistol, then holstered it. "We fight the supplier."
He turned to the corner where the holographic projector sat dormant.
"Nyar," Vance spoke to the darkness. "Wake up."
The projector flickered to life, running on its emergency battery. The blue face of the fox-like young man appeared, grinning despite the chaos.
"The audience is getting rowdy," Nyar giggled. "Do we take a bow?"
"No. We exit stage left." Vance pointed to the rear wall of the safe house, which abutted an old sewage drainage pipe. "Can you spoof a heavy vehicle signature?"
"I can be a tank. I can be a parade float," Nyar replied, his face shifting into the likeness of the thug on the water truck outside.
"Good. Project a thermal signature of a heavily armed convoy approaching from the south. Draw the crowd's attention."
"Cerberus," Vance signaled to the back wall. "Breach it. Quietly."
As Cerberus began to cut through the concrete with a laser cutter, Vance looked back at the mob one last time.
The "Sour Acid" smell was spreading, turning the "Dry Dust" into Burning Wood—rage. The explosion was imminent.
"Greed thinks he can control the market by controlling the supply," Vance whispered to the invisible agitators. "He's right. So I'm not going to defend this house."
The wall crumbled inward, revealing the dark, damp tunnel of the sewer.
"We are going to cut his supply chain."