"Doctor Winter." Someone called from behind her back.
"Ah, Sina. What's up?"
It's been a week after the recent mission. Everyone's busy with stabilizing the perimeter around the location to secure the place to expand more habitable zone for humanity.
"We've cleared the sector four now and waiting for transport team." The operator reported.
"Okay, I'll sent notice to them, take some rest for now, all of you." She replied, writing on her tablet.
The operator nods and went back to her group. The icy place turned into a construction site to build yet another platform for the city to build.
"Sara." A man voice, an oddly familiar one at that.
"Blade." She replied, calling the man's codename as she returned to her tablet.
"Sorry for dragging you here replacing Anvil." He apologize out of nowhere.
"Heh, it's fine, that bum always hate the snow. Can't be helped." She remarked casually. "Besides he's not entirely abandoning us."
She show him the screen where she's chatting with Anvil regarding the construction. He hums softly in understanding.
"He said until we finished with the supporting Pilar, he'll take care of the rest." She added, placing her tablet back to her bag and watch how everyone's working hard.
"I see, then I'll leave you with the supervisor job, I'll be right in my corner if you need something." He left to his post.
She's working for a group called Sanctuary. A city build on top of a platform above the infected air. A place lead by a person named "Keeper", they're a group of people whose been rebuilding humanity, using the power of the "mutated", an individual who evolve from the infection and gain supernatural powers.
With their influence, every place across the earth has become a city above the clouds and had no choice but to follow the rules set by the Keeper. To see the mutated not as enemy, but as a fellow individuals.
Beep...
"Yeah?" Sara answer the call from her comms.
"Are you done with your work there?" A male voice.
"Almost, what's up?"
"The keeper want to talk about something. He wants all the Holder members to be there tomorrow."
"Huh...so sudden. Did something happened?"
"Not really."
"Alright, just give me the details later."
"Alright."
Beep.
She close the call and wondering what could this about. For the Keeper to call all the members of Holder to gather.
"Sara. Did you know something about it." Blade came back again, asking her if she got a hunch.
"...Probably about this new city. Whether it's about finding a leader or deciding the name of it, we can wait until tomorrow." She said calmly, placing one hand on her hip.
Meanwhile, somewhere far from the construction sites, Clara's currently deployed for another expedition to sweep the remaining infection.
Using her ability, she froze the particles into a block of ice, purifying the air while also stopping it from spreading further.
"Another core detected, permission for elimination." She spoke to her comms.
"Permission granted. Proceed with caution." The operator replied.
With that being said, she took a safe distance from the pulsing core, the source of the gas and also the highest threat for now.
She form a bow made from ice and draw the arrow. She aims and release it, piercing through the core and freezing it instantly before it could go off and spreading even more gas.
"Mission accomplished. Target has been neutralized. Returning to base now."
"Affirmative, thank you for your hard work miss winter."
Despite the core being destroyed, the remaining gas still lingering. Hence an all out cleaning need to be done. And the current operator capable of doing that is only her.
"Hng...as expected from the Holder." The operator stretching on her chair after receiving the reports.
"She reminds me of sir Fiend." The operator next to her added.
"Well, as expected from the siblings then. And yet they follows doctor Sara's words simply because she's the oldest. Haah...I Miss my baby brother now." The operator joked before being hit on the head by the supervisor and get back to work.
The next day, in early morning of Tuesday, all the remaining members of Holder gathering around the round table.
The Holder is a group of elites operator. A group who filled with someone capable of taking on many people at once to the someone who can turn the earth upside down. There's currently seven of them now.
Starting from Sara, there's Clara who goes with the codename Winter, Anvil, Blade, Flow, Scope and Provider.
And then there's the Keeper, a weary man who looks brittle and weak, yet gaining everyone's respect entirely.
"I'm glad seeing everyone's okay. You might wondering why I called you today. Luna." He said to his assistant beside him.
Luna immediately pressed the button on her tablet and activate the holographic map across the table.
"With the help from Winter, we managed to secure another spot for humanity, I'd want to discuss about the future of it, yet it seems we have something urgent happening right now." He said as Luna shift the map toward a specific location.
"... That's a lot of core... Is there another rift opening?" Flow asked, her voice a wonder as she saw the red all over the location.
"Perhaps it is. Our satellite caught the signals yet we haven't reach that place yet. We can assume it's already filled with the walker and whatnot." The Keeper said as the hologram showing a rather unfamiliar picture of infected creatures.
"With that much of core, we can assume how thick the virus now and it'll take yet another years to simply get rid of that. But with so much project we had, rerouting resources is unavoidable if we decided to deal with it." Sara spoke, her tone clinical and serious.
"Correct. That's why I gather all of you here today. I want to hear your opinion about this. The scale of it already reaching a dangerous level, but fortunately it's happened in an uncharted territory. Means we still can wait." The keeper added with weary tone.
They begin to discuss about it, about the plan and about the way to deal with it.
"Looking at the way they're spreading, I guess we could try to build a wall in case they suddenly changing direction." Anvil suggest, the engineer and weapon manufacturer who basically made everything in this place.
"We don't have enough resources for that, with the new city being built, we can't afford spending more and we can't just tell Winter to build it for us." Provider countered, the teams Intel and scout.
"Fair point, but it's not like we can just ignore it. We need at least something to slow them down if things goes ugly suddenly." Anvil insisted, sound convincingly right.
"How about we launch another satellite?" Blade suggested suddenly.
"Elaborate."
"I'm thinking about making a death ray. Where we can operate and eliminate the core from the distance." He added.
"Not only it cheaper but it'll be useful for a prolonged period. I like the sound of that." Scope agreed, the team's ranger.
"But then if we use that, the heat from the ray will caused the core to explode." The Keeper Joined in.
And immediately, everyone were looking at Clara who's been silent this whole conversation.
"...No. we can't just stuffed her in spaceship and hope it'll work." The Keeper turn down the idea immediately.
"Then I'll help with building something to deal with it." Anvil insisted.
"How much are you planning on taking? You already had a lot to handle." Sara remarked, reminding him to his thick schedule.
"Not me. But my team, we'll made something similar to Fiend smoke cartridges and..." He stopped, the mention of their deceased friends suddenly make the room feels heavier.
"Very well, I'll leave it to you then, Anvil." The Keeper said, breaking the silence and keeping the conversation running.
The discussion stretches for another hours, talking about funds and also a few small things.
"And speaking of which, I'd like to talk with Winter and Sara. The rest may leave. Get some rest and keep the hard work." The Keeper said, ending the meeting for now.
With that being said, everyone begin to leave the meeting room except for Clara and Sara.
"Now...shall we started?"