Chapter 19: Victory?
Returning to the center of the corridor, I saw that the cross on the computer screen was now completely colored green. New text had appeared, this time saying "The final Lock awaits you, the Gate of Seven Keys. Only by inserting your acquired Keys can you declare Victory."
"Where is this 'final lock'?" I asked.
"Don't know," Carnivore responded. "None of the Gatekeeper Arenas had separate gates, so it must be around here somewhere."
"Wait, I think I see it." I had noticed, just behind the screen, an area that featured guardrails. There also seemed to be a panel extruding from the floor. Looking closer, I got the idea that the panel seemed to be the final lock mentioned in the screen. There were seven separate Key holes, four of them numbering one through four, the other three being color-coded to blue, yellow and red.
"An elevator, eh?" Carnivore seemed to notice my observation. "Let's go, Toby."
Once we were both on, Carnivore inserted the numbered Keys we had acquired, followed by the Gatekeepers' colored Keys. Once they were all in, the roof opened, and the area we were on started rising. We rose until we were through the new opening and into a white-colored area, similar to the first sections of the Void I saw. Waiting for us was the Warden and a few other personnel.
"So, someone finally won a War?" he started. "You're not as brainless as I thought, Carnivore."
"Keep talking, Warden. We still won," my friend sounded very angry, similar to the anger she displayed with the Yellow Gatekeeper.
"True, since you won a War, what right do I have to deny you the spoils? You are now free to choose two other people aside from yourself to be the new Gatekeepers."
"What the hell kind of bullshit is that?"
"You won single-handedly."
"What about my fr-partner here?"
"He is still too fresh to have participated in War, so he will remain in the Black Zone." I couldn't believe this. Why did this have to be brought up now?
"Bullshit! He was here for just over a year, excluding his Leniency Week, and the minimum time he needs to have spent here is a year."
"Have it your way, Carnivore. I'm sick of hearing your stale arguments anyway. Now that you have defeated the current Gatekeepers without a loss, you two have been chosen to be the new Gatekeepers. You now have to select one other person to be the third Gatekeeper, but it has to be from the foes you encountered during War."
Carnivore looked at me. I could tell what she was thinking, and I nodded my approval, after which she spoke again. "Bring the Succubus!"
A while later, Rebecca Scarlet was brought in, and as this happened, three doors opened. One opened from behind us, the other from the sides of the room, and in came the three Gatekeepers.
"Gatekeepers," the Warden began. "You were defeated in battle, and allowed the gates to be thrown open. As a token of your shame, you now have to give up your Gate Guardians, the Sacred Beasts, and allow your successors to wield them."
With that, their Sacred Beast cards were handed to us. I felt a special bond with Uria; it seemed like the only card that appealed to me. Carnivore, strangely, settled for Hamon, although Rebecca seemed quite infatuated with Raviel.
Once we had chosen our Sacred Beasts, the Gatekeepers removed their respective Keys from the elevator locks, and handed them to us. I got the red key, Carnivore got the yellow, and Rebecca got the blue. Quite sad, really, because blue was one of my favorite colors.
The three of us were taken back to security, and had to surrender our keycards. After a few minutes, we got them back, although we were told that now we had high-level access. We were also told that, now since we were the new Gatekeepers, we weren't required to take any more lessons. However, we fell under the Warden's direct authority, and that of his subordinates, and we were still based in our original Cells.
"Well, so much for that plan," I found myself saying in my Cell the next day, with the only two friends I had made keeping me company.
"Don't think of it like that, Toby," Carnivore told me. "Sure, we're not out of here yet, but consider that War as a stepping stone."
"You two…" Rebecca began, "…thanks for what you did."
"I remember you also wanting out of here, Succubus. It seemed only fair. You and Toby are the same in that respect."
"Still… thanks."
"Anyway, we need to get ourselves acquainted with high-level access now. We are new Gatekeepers, so I don't think anyone should raise an eyebrow at us taking a peek."
A couple minutes later, we left the Cell, and instead walked over to the pure white VIP lifts. After seeing that our keycards worked and getting in, we saw a whole range of areas to choose from. For one thing, they had a separate food court, and they also had their own break room and sleeping quarters. Other areas included the Hangar Bay, which is presumably where I was received, along with the Security Station. Then there was the Warden's Office, which confused me as it was on an entirely separate floor.
We explored one area at a time, although when we got to the Hangar Bays, I was quite shocked to say the least. We approached one of the hangars, and it had a glass area through which we could see the interior of the wide hangar itself.
"Depressurizing Hangar 9," a voice sounded over the intercom. Doors from the other side of the hangar started opening, and as they did, I swore I could see air leaving. The doors continued to open, revealing something I couldn't quite make out at the time. Once the doors had fully opened, however, I could see what shook me to my bones: I could see a large, grey object floating in the middle of nowhere. A plane came in to land, and just as it entered, the doors began closing. Just before reaching the other side of the hangar, the doors were shut, and there was an announcement mentioning pressurization of the area.
I had to see more. When we returned to the lifts, I inserted my own keycard and looked for a destination. Just about all of the high-level areas were above the low-level areas, except for one: an observatory. Why would an observatory be at the bottom? Still, that was the region I ordered the lift to go.
"Something wrong, Toby?" Rebecca asked me.
"There's something I need to find out. What the hell was that 'depressurization' thing?"
When the lift arrived, I was in a long corridor. I ran out into that corridor, towards the end, with Carnivore and Rebecca following me. When I reached my destination, I found a keycard slot. Inserting my keycard, an option came up, saying "LOWER OBSERVATION DECK – BULKHEADS 1-6. OPEN/CLOSE". I pressed the 'OPEN' option, and the metal along the wall in front of us began retracting, allowing light to pour in from the outside. I was completely stunned by what I saw; a large, blue planet-like… anyway, if what I saw was right, then I was looking down at the Earth itself! Which could only mean one thing… "This place… is… a space station?" I found myself saying, at a loss for words to express how trapped I was feeling.
"Those sons of bitches," Carnivore spat.
"So we were in space all along," Rebecca sighed. "Toby, Carnivore, I swear to both of you: I'm going to tear this whole place down!"
"That makes three of us from the looks of it, but let's not be too hasty. We first have got a lot of research to do. Mark my words, we will be free of this place!"
That was the point in my life that a light of hope and the chance to escape started flickering, yet it wasn't bright, just enough to turn the black to gray.
End note: It just seemed to make sense to me to make the Void a space station. In the English Dub of 5Ds, Sayer described the secret location as having the co-ordinates ever-changing, and a space station sounded almost ideal. How else would the base be continuously mobile, yet fail to draw attention from other cities or countries? Another reason I opted for 'space station' was the horror of the fact that there would be no escape from the Void if inmates found out what it truly was, as well as the fact that it was quite fitting that the inmates be stranded in a literal void.