Realizing this, Raimund's knees buckled. He sank down where he stood. Passersby whispered above his bowed head, but Raimund didn't hear a thing.
A sharp ringing in his ears grew louder.
What should I do?
What if the bomb goes off here?
Am I going to die? Of course I will.
He didn't care about dying. If the bomb exploded next to him, he wouldn't even have time to feel pain.
But Raimund hadn't lived just to die like this.
At least he wanted to choose the way he died, as much as the fact he died.
Not to die as a terrorist who set off a bomb in the economic district!
His vision blurred. Think, Raimund Geppert. Please, just think!
Cold sweat ran down his cheek, dripping onto the manhole cover.
Staring blankly at the dark brass manhole shadowed by his own figure, Raimund suddenly jumped up.
"This is it!"
His scream made people look at him again, but Raimund didn't care.
He remembered something he'd heard once.
Long ago, at the early construction of the UK shelter, some people had argued that due to concerns about soil and water pollution, the dome should be a complete sphere enclosing the ground entirely underground, but that was practically impossible.
Budget issues forced the dome to be built as a hemisphere focusing on protecting humanity from air pollution.
Thanks to this, all the hated facilities and infrastructure, which took up lots of space, could be buried underground, and people above lived in a 'clean city' where only essential parts remained above ground.
Raimund jumped up and started running again, squeezing into a narrow alley between shops on First Street.
Behind buildings filled with a musty smell, he spotted a grimy sewer manhole cover on the floor.
Old, rusty, filthy—but it didn't matter. The fewer people came here, the better.
Feeling the cover, he found a ring and two holes for fingers.
But the stiff manhole wouldn't open easily. After struggling for a while with a broom leaned against a back door, he finally used it as a lever to lift the heavy cover.
Clank.
A foul stench hit his face sharply.
He slung the bag over his shoulder and descended deep.
Darkness welcomed him.
The first sewer pipe just below ground level. Maybe there were deeper pipes below.
Slippery walls, the sound of trickling water somewhere.
The sewage reaching his ankles was lukewarm and disgusting. Worse, the stench stung his nose so badly that his sense of smell began to numb.
But now was not the time to complain.
Quickly, deeper.
As far down as possible, even deeper than now.
Darkness squeezed his breath. He couldn't see a step ahead and slipped, then fell.
The explosive device he took out of the bag flashed a clear "02:14".
14, 13, 12…
The muddy sewer's ceiling grew lower. Raimund bent down until he had to crawl.
5, 4, 3…
His heavy breathing echoed right beside him. Something spat in his mouth, but he forced himself not to think about the source of the liquid.
50, 49, 48…
When he placed his right hand, he realized a moment too late the slippery floor covered with filth and moss had disappeared.
Losing balance, he fell into the abyss below.
All that remained inside the sewer were faint screams and ominous thudding sounds following him.
20, 19, 18…
Raimund opened his eyes at the bottom of an underground pipe where sewage splashed, not even reaching his shins.
He clearly heard the sound of his own spine breaking.
His mind was conscious but some part of his body seemed broken. He could move his fingers, but his legs wouldn't obey.
With dull pain in his back, he looked at his arms and neck twisted at strange angles he had never seen before.
1, 59, 58…
The red numbers flickered far away.
Raimund thought blankly.
If the price for greedily wanting 50,000 credits was only this, it was cheap.
47, 46, 45…
Having left the orphanage, Raimund had known hunger and cold.
They ate away at people, making them miserable. Eating dreams and hope, they grew into bugs that left only despair and loneliness.
The director's voice echoed again.
"You worthless filthy bastards, you have no value at all. Because of useless trash like you, the shelter gets filthy!"
20, 19, 18…
It was cold. The foul stench mixed with a fishy smell.
Half-submerged, the flickering bomb and the wet bag.
And himself, dying just the same.
5, 4, 3.
Hoping that coming this far was worth it, Raimund let the terrible drowsiness overtake him.
"Sorry, Olive. I can't buy painkillers today. Sorry, Fioni, for letting your meal go cold, and Hazel, sorry I can't play with you anymore."
The faint beeping stopped.
His eardrums burst, and his blacked-out vision turned white.
That was all.
A sudden mysterious explosion in the economic zone's underground.
The side street slightly off First Street's shops collapsed horribly, and nearby water pipes were damaged, forcing the economic zone to declare a temporary closure and begin rapid repair.
The construction site was cordoned off with barricades and tape to keep citizens away.
But shop owners, forced to close, repeatedly filed complaints with the shelter government.
Unable to endure the pressure, the government decided to conduct an on-site investigation before deciding on compensation for injured people and business owners.
One day before the government's inspection team arrived,
the quiet street where shops were forcibly closed was almost deserted.
Only the occasional visitor from across the street came to see how bad the accident was.
Into the silence of the explosion site, someone approached.
"Mr. Friedrich, are you really sure?"
"I'd bet 5,000 credits it's not a mistake. Though faint, it was definitely the Red Witch's unique scent."
"Just a smell and yet you're that certain."
"Wait and see."
Two people crossed the barricades and yellow tape.
One was a man dressed all in black except for disheveled white hair.
The other was a woman in a plain brown coat and suit.
They went to the edge where the black hole gaped wide and looked down.
The white-haired man said,
"It's gunpowder."
"I see. We can discard the theory that the explosion was caused by water pipe pressure. Can you see anything below?"
"I'm trying. My night vision isn't that good either."
The woman leaned into the abyss where even streetlights couldn't reach but saw nothing clearly.
The man fixed his blue eyes below and soon raised an eyebrow.
"Someone is there."
"Who? A citizen caught in the blast? Or an anomaly?"
"I have an idea, but one thing's certain: the explosion wasn't caused by an anomaly. But before revealing the details, I want to contact the association's cleanup crew to secure that corpse."
"You said the Red Witch is involved? If that's a witch research subject?"
"Only God knows what they're scheming, but if it's about why they tried to blow up the economic zone, I can find out. For that, I need that corpse."
The man slowly stood up.
Under the pale streetlights of the dark dawn, his hair shone clearly.
The man wearing black leather gloves pointed down and said,
"Whether it's an unlucky citizen or an accomplice of the Red Witch from the Hyresis cult, let's see how much we can learn from a mere piece of meat. Call the cleanup crew."