[REND] B2. 5.3 - The Three Bs

The entrance to the bunker system that Overdrive had told me about was around a fifteen-minute ride from Enrico’s place. It was near an abandoned train station that used to be a stop when Marsh Row was thriving. The train lines had since been diverted closer to the business districts, and a new station had been built—this was where I usually jumped off when visiting Marsh Row. I hadn’t passed by the old station because it was out of the way and blocked off by overgrown shrubbery.

“Great work researching this, Erind,” Myra said while driving. “If nothing comes out of this, we can still find a spot to train there in peace, as you said.”

“I don’t know the exact population of the city decades back,” Deen said, “but it had to be a million at the least. Could be even two million. I picture the network of bunkers and tunnels to be quite extensive to accommodate them. If there’s a place for an Adumbrae to hide, be it Kelsey or Red Hood, the bunkers would be the perfect choice. We just have to search them.”

“I hope we find Kelsey soon,” Myra wistfully said.

“We will,” Deen replied in a firm tone. “Erind and I will help you.”

“Um… thanks. Really.” Myra sounded like she wasn’t used to people helping her without asking for stuff in return.

“Myra…” I slowly started, wondering how to proceed. I wanted to learn more about Kelsey, and this felt like the perfect opportunity to ask. I might learn something that could help me. “Besides the healing thing, were there other signs that Kelsey was an Adumbrae? I remember that you mentioned that she didn’t have any growths.”

“None that I saw,” Myra clarified. “But my sister most definitely had some inhuman changes that she hid from me. My hunch was that she left our place to live on her own because some growths were too difficult to hide.”

“I see…” I had to stifle a giggle. That was one of the reasons I left Deen’s house. Too much of a hassle to disguise my hand. “But I don’t get it. Kelsey knows that you know she’s an Adumbrae. You’re even helping her with the treatment, pills from the Professor, and stuff. Why would she hide her growths from you?”

“Perhaps it’s not the changes per se that Kelsey was worried about,” Deen said.

Per se, I scoffed in my head. “Ah, you mean like Kelsey is worried that she might be… more of an Adumbrae? That she’ll lose control of herself and harm Myra?”

“Could be it,” Myra said, shrugging. “Could also be that she felt guilty about the whole thing. If her body is starting to change in inhuman ways, I’d have to ask for more help from the Professor. In return, I might need to undertake more dangerous missions than usual. Kelsey didn’t mention it, but I knew that she thought of herself as a burden.”

“So, you didn’t notice any bodily changes?” I asked. “What about her power? Did they already manifest? Maybe she also hid—”

“Nah, she showed it to me,” Myra said, and left it at that. “That’s why I suspect parts of her body had already changed to some extent.”

“What was her power?” Deen asked. “If we find her, she might not want to come with us. I’m sorry to say this, Myra, but your sister could likely be hostile. After all, it was her choice to hide from you.”

“Yeah, yeah. I get that.” Myra held up her right hand and made grabbing motions in the air. “Kelsey’s power… She can… grab things from afar. Like, she can project her hand. I’m not doing a good job of explaining this.”

“You mean that if she’s in this car,” I said, “she can sort of psychically touch the electric pole over there, next to that store? Or can she do a long-range choke? This reminds me of the Wars for the Stars movie. Telekinetic wizard samurai in space.”

“I’ve seen that movie,” Myra said. “I guess Kelsey can choke people from afar if she wants to, but her power isn’t only that. Okay, let’s say that I’m Kelsey. I have a clear view of my target—some guy across the road. Needs an unblocked line of sight. I can choke that person. I can also pull away a chunk of his flesh. I can do like so—” Myra let go of the stirring wheel and mimed grabbing again “—and my target’s flesh would materialize in my hand. Instantly.”

“Whoa, that’s some crazy ability,” I said. Why couldn’t I have something cool like that? I could get snacks from the kitchen while sitting on my couch. Reach out, and I’d suddenly have a croissant in my hands. Truly, a magnificent power.

“Do you know its range, Myra?” asked Deen.

Myra clicked her tongue. “Uh, nope, I don’t. Kelsey won’t tell me. The farthest I’ve seen her test it was around twenty feet or so. That’s not the limit, I’m sure. If she can tear off something normally, with her own hands, she could do it with her projection power.”

“And she has super strength,” I said, recalling how Tower Cop started to suspect there was a fourth Adumbrae during the train attack. Someone called 911 about a woman fighting the monsters. The woman didn’t survive the train attack, but Tower Cop had reviewed the recordings before the 2Ms managed to delete them.

The 2Ms were looking for Kelsey as well. They kidnapped me to interrogate me for information about Kelsey. That led to meeting Dario and my life getting bothered big time. Kelsey owes me. That said, I was having fun. Maybe I have to thank her for this.

“Super strength, yep,” Myra said. “She could crush a normal person’s head from afar. Lots of other things too. She could knead a dough with her power,” Myra added, chuckling grimly.

“Can Kelsey project the force of her punch?” I asked. “Can she like punch over here while looking at that tree? Then there’d be a hole in that tree?”

“Doesn’t work with punches. I’m not sure the specifics of it because Kelsey doesn’t want to test it for long—makes her feel that the Adumbrae is taking hold, she says—but I’ve seen it work only with grabs. The momentum and force of a punch don’t transfer. Or maybe it’s only the force of the fingers that works?”

“Even if Kelsey could only grab,” Deen said, “her ability is still horrifying to contend with.”

“We have you with us, Deen,” I said. “And I don’t think Kelsey can kill us in one hit… one grab. We’d have time to break her line of sight. Hide in a corner or something. By the way, Myra, I’m not saying that Kelsey will attack us.”

“She probably will,” Myra mumbled, probably more to herself.

“Why?” I asked. Did Myra suspect that Kelsey had turned more into a monster?

“The pills,” Deen said. “The pills from the Professor that’s supposed to keep Kelsey’s Adumbrae transformation at bay—she hadn’t taken them for a few weeks now. Will she be… alright?”

“Will she still look human, is what you’re asking,” Myra said. “I don’t know. Even Adumbrae experts say that the rate of transformation is different for each individual. Yeah, maybe... she's no longer herself. If we run into monster Kelsey, we can restrain her. There are three of us.”

“After that, what?” I asked. “How do we transport her to New Hope? We might wreck this car in the struggle.”

“We’ll figure that out later,” Myra replied. “Who knows, maybe I can talk it out with Kelsey and convince her to come with us. All this planning, and we’re not even sure if she’s down there. Let’s get to the bunkers first. Is this the right way?”

“I think so.” I glanced at a rusted street sign we passed, hoping I didn’t mess up Overdrive’s instruction. “A left turn at the end of this road and we’ll reach a fenced-off area.”

We didn’t reach the fenced-off area.

We didn’t even reach the turn. Myra had to park and hide the car in an alley because there were people up ahead. Cars, too. How odd. Overdrive said that no one should be here—there were many better places in Marsh Row to use as a base. That was why he recommended this place to me. That misinformation peddling minion failed me! This would go on his quarterly performance review.

“Who are they?” I asked Myra, who was peeking from behind the corner. I wondered if these were gangsters under my banner—many of them were apparently gathering in Marsh Row, like Enrico—or these were the enemy. The PCM was establishing a presence in Marsh Row, after all. We might be near a PCM base.

“Dunno. But they don’t appear to have noticed our car.” Myra turned to us.

“Wha-what do we do?” I asked in a fearful tone. Remember that I didn’t join the docks mission and had zero combat experience. Plus, I had a timid face on; having superstrength shouldn’t automatically erase that trait. “Do we leave? Um, we can look for another bunker or something.”

“It shouldn’t be too difficult to find another bunker,” Deen said. “Given that this is Marsh Row, those people might not want us coming near and snooping about their business.”

“But it’s… suspicious that there are people here,” I added, hoping that Myra wouldn’t back out. I didn’t actually want to leave. Marsh Row was my domain. I wanted to investigate this place instead of a different bunker with only spiders inside. Some excitement before the main event tonight.

Myra slowly nodded. “You’re right, Erind. My gut is telling me that this isn’t a coincidence. Rumors of an Adumbrae in the city bunkers, and some guys are gathering near one? I mean, eh, it could be a coincidence. But we should check what they’re up to, just to be sure. Are you with me?”

I nodded. “We promised to help you find Kelsey.” I actually didn’t; Deen did. I had to remind her of it.  

“Time for a sneaking mission then,” Deen said with a slightly resigned tone. “Isn’t that right, Erind? What’s the suspenseful tune from that one famous movie? You should know that. Dun, dun, dun-nun-dun—”

“Stop messing with me,” I said, elbowing my annoying best friend. I didn’t want to be the bullied target of the Three Bs. “As the genius of our group, I propose climbing this building here and traversing this area over the rooftops.”

And that was what we did. The buildings were only two stories at most, so we had to keep away from the roof edges to not get spotted by anyone looking up while doing neck stretches. It all proceeded well with Deen in the lead. Her Guardian Angel advised her on the safe spots to jump on without making noise.

Reaching the last building before the turn heading to the bunker area, we peered down to see what the fuck was up. The street was lined with parked vehicles, with around a dozen people milling about. Some of them were smoking and drinking. Others were chatting or playing on their phones.

“The PCM?” I whispered. One van had the PCM fist logo. There were a couple of guys sporting their signature yellow armbands. And another was wearing a PCM shirt. This must be one of the PCM’s bases for the conquest of Marsh Row. I had no idea what their actual plan was, but these bastards weren’t going to succeed if Red Hood had something to say about it!

“Why are PCM members here?” Deen wondered. “Don’t they have a recruitment office downtown?”

“Guns,” Myra said under her breath. “That guy with a red jacket has a rifle over his shoulder. Those two bozos by the pickup truck are comparing pistols.” She snorted. “Thank the Mother Core that Reo isn’t here—he’d have something to say about comparing pistols.”

“The rest might have concealed weapons,” Deen said. “These PCM members are guarding the bunker.”

The three of us looked left, at the bunker area.

The fence was down and all the greenery cleared. There were also construction materials like bricks, metal beams, and cement bags stacked around the compound. A small dump truck partially blocked our view of the bulky archway that was the bunker’s entrance. But we could see that it was open.

“Looks like they recently moved in,” Myra said as we retreated away from the roof’s edge to discuss. “There may be more to the rumors about the bunkers.”

“PCM and bunkers…” I slowly said. “What could be the connection?”

“PCM and bunkers and Adumbrae,” Myra said.

“Do you suspect that the PCM is connected to Kelsey’s disappearance?” Deen asked.  

“Not before,” Myra said. “But I do now. No upstanding group would turn an abandoned bunker into a base. And they’re making some major renovations in there. These PCM nuts are up to illegal stuff. Is it regular illegal stuff or something more? I’m betting on the latter.”

I raised a brow at Myra. “Are they holding Kelsey inside?” Before I knew that the PCM was looking for me, I would’ve thought that Myra was delusional, affected by her desperate search for her sister. I thought differently now. If not Red Hood, the PCM might try another Adumbrae, like Kelsey, for whatever their plan was. They might be constructing a reinforced cell to imprison an Adumbrae.

“Maybe?” Myra replied with an awkward shrug while crouching. “Eh, they’re probably making a meth lab, something else not related to Adumbrae. But I can’t just walk away; every possible lead, I have to investigate. It’s fine if you two don’t want to come with me. This might turn out more dangerous than expected.”

“We’re not leaving.” Deen glanced at me.

“I’m not leaving either,” I said. “The Three Bs are sticking together until we find Kelsey.”

“There is our promise, yes,” Deen said. “But I also want to be here to keep Myra safe… as well as the PCM members. They’re regular humans, and most of them probably don’t know any better about the true plans of their organization.”

“I’m not going on a murder spree, Deen,” Myra said with an exasperated groan. “If they did something to my sister, then yeah, they’ll all regret it. But if not, I’ll keep the collateral damage to a minimum. I don’t need a babysitter.”

“So, how do we get in?” I asked before they could start arguing. “Deen, what’s the safest way?”

“Gabe’s not telling me anything right now,” Deen replied. “I’ll have to force its cooperation. Let’s go this way.”

We transferred to two more buildings. There were no more roofs to hop on. We dropped down the sidewalk, unnoticed by the PCM idiots, and crouched in the cover of the parked cars. It was then that Gabe’s instructions kicked in.

Deen found an empty can of baked beans, which might be older than her, and threw it to the other side of the street. The clanking sound attracted the PCM guys, clearing our way to the formerly enclosed area around the bunker entrance. We weaved through the piles of construction materials and stopped behind a stack of bricks. Popping over the bricks, we’d have a clear sight of the men by the entrance.

The only remaining challenge was the two guys playing chess right in front of it.

“Okay, how are we supposed to do this?” Myra said. “They’re going to see me come up to them.”

“Maybe Deen could play the femme fatale and distract them,” I said, giggling.  

But Deen didn’t snap at me, as I expected. With a conflicted face, she chewed her lower lip instead of replying to us.

“What is it?” I asked. “Is your Guardian Angel telling us to abort the mission?”

Myra bristled. “I’m not going to—”

“It’s not that,” Deen cut in. “Gabe wants us to throw stones at the men. But if we do that, we’ll likely kill them.”