"There it is, the Citadel," Arashiro pressed her nose against the window of the bus as if that could
help her see more detail.
"Why build a new city in the middle of nowhere?" Izuho wondered, leaning over Arashiro's shoulder.
"Well, privacy? Security?" Arashiro suggested with a shrug.
The road was brand new--likely paved in the last month or so--and the bus glided along like an ice dancer beneath an eerily pale-blue sky. Most of the approaching buildings were short--two stories at most--with the Citadel proper being an exception. It was four stories high and looked more like a hospital, helipads on the roof and all, than a military building. Well, it wasn't as if the PLF had a Cementoss of their own to pull elaborately customized masonry out of a hat. Still, when he heard "Citadel" Izuho had expected... a circular building for some reason, something like the Roman Collisseum.
"For some reason I thought it would be round," Arashiro echoed the spy's thoughts. "For some reason I did, too."
"Not sure why I thought that."
There was a large airfield attached to the city and a dozen gloomy, gray warehouses circled the installation at a distance, trucks and cars constantly entering and exiting their vicinity. Those buildings were probably full of munitions or something.
They passed the boundary of the warehouses and entered the installation itself, slowing to a crawl as traffic picked up. Everything from the buildings to the sidewalks to the manhole covers was shiny, superficial, the whole pseudo-city having risen from the ground in a matter of months. "Wow... actual stores. Who runs those?" Arashiro wondered, watching retailers roll past. "Are
there civilians living here?"
"I doubt it," Wakiya commented from the seats ahead of them.
"There are probably some civilian contractors of some kind working in place like this," Izuho hypothesized. "They're still associated with the army, paid by the army, but won't have a rank or anything."
"There must be tens of thousands of people living here," Wakiya gaped as they passed yet another apartment complex.
The bus ground to a halt. "The second floor, east wing is ours," Sone told them as the squad collected their items from luggage racks and beneath seats. "Make sure to grab a key from me before you head up. My understanding is some of the beds are significantly nicer than others. Don't make me mediate any conflicts. First come is first served."
Whether this was her intention or not, the announcement resulted in the entire squad evacuating the bus as if it were on fire. To maximize the amount of apartment per floor, all the stairs were external to the building, exposed, little more than fire escapes, really, shiny fire escapes that rattled ominously beneath a herd of pounding feet. The squad raced up the stairs, everyone gunning for a choice spot.
Their squad's wing consisted of five rooms containing a pair of bunk beds each and one single room for Sone. A footlocker and desk were provided for each occupant. The rooms had personal thermostats and the wing had its own bathrooms; they didn't have to share with the floor. Wow. This was... they hadn't seen anything this nice since that night crashing in student dorms in Hosu. The beds all looked similar enough, but one of the rooms didn't have any windows while another was a corner room with views in two directions. Arashiro and Izuho were fast enough to claim beds in the overly-windowed room. There wasn't much to see, just more crowded streets, but natural light was worth fighting over.
"We can see the... is the whole town the Citadel or is just that building the Citadel?" Arashiro pointed to the tall tower peeking above the skyline.
"Um... I don't know? Maybe we can just call both the city and the building the Citadel and the meaning will be clear from context?"
"Maybe. Can I have the top bunk? Or do you want it? I remember you were always after the top bunk during our training days."
"I don't care so much," Izuho shrugged, taking a seat at one of the desks--decently made, chipboard--and gazing out the window at the bustle of the PLF's central military institution. If the streets stayed this busy and loud at night (as well they might) it would probably be harder to sleep here than in the middle of the forest. In a tent in the woods, it was usually quiet and Izuho had become very sensitive to noise lately. Heavy trucks going by at night was going to bother him. Maybe he should get some earplugs.
"Huh, new mattresses," Arashiro said as Wakiya and Nishida began to sort their meager belongings into footlockers.
"So we have to be back here by dinner time," Nishida mused, " but that's a while from now. Can we go out?"
"Yeah, that's fine," Sone said as she passed by on the way to her private room.
"I'll sort through my stuff later, let's go," Arashiro declared, jumping down from the bunk. "Stores. Shopping... I haven't been shopping in... I don't know. I can't remember."
A grocery market, a cafe, a noodle stand, a department store, a bookstore-library hybrid thing named "Book Barrel..." A number of their squadmates vanished into a bar-arcade of some kind, but Arashiro wanted to keep exploring. The movie theater they came across advertised old films and reruns. Domestic film production had been completely decimated by the war. International films wouldn't have been affected at all, but for many reasons the PLF had no interest in making them available. Would movies show propaganda news reels before they started like they used to in some countries during World War II?.
"I almost feel like a real person again," Izuku said, drifting through the bustling streets where, for once, a significant number of people were not in PLF uniform. "We could get actual clothes to wear when we're off duty. We could have... clothes... that aren't gray or camouflage. That's allowed."
"I know what you mean," Arashiro agreed. "I want a book." "Do you have money for a book?"
"It's not like I've had anything to spend my stipend on," she rolled her eyes in emphasis. "Or any home to send it to," she added quietly. Par for the course, that.
"I mean do you have money on you?" Izuho couldn't remember the last time he'd even seen a significant amount of cash, let alone a credit card.
"No, but look! There's our bank!" The building was not precisely elegant, but it was sturdy, intimidating almost. A line snaked out the wide, green doors.
"Huh. Cool." Did Izuku want a book, too? Did he want one badly enough to stand in that line to get money? Yes. Yes he absolutely did. "Yeah. Me, too."
The line moved quickly, the large number of tellers on duty making up for the lack of automation in many of the bank's systems and within twenty minutes the two soldiers were browsing cluttered bookshelves in the Book Barrel. Volumes seemed to be organized by jacket color rather than author or subject. Unfortunately, and expectedly, the cluttered shelves had been carefully curated to contain only the kind of stuff Izuku wouldn't want to read. There was a section in the back selling books in other languages, with a significant selection of English and Spanish books, these far less carefully censored than their Japanese counterparts. Izuku had never before had cause to realize he was fluent in Spanish but of course he was; Switcher's parents were native Spanish speakers and the body-hopper had likely grown up speaking both at home. If he were going to inherit English fluency he should certainly inherit Spanish fluency, too. What about Russian, second hand from Arch? No, apparently not. That title just looked like gibberish... although he could read the spine next to it. Weird. He'd worry about that some other time.
Fossa didn't necessarily want to advertise Spanish fluency. That was an unusual skill, far more difficult to explain away than English proficiency, so an English book it was... Ah, here was a nice, thick volume, all be it well-loved and missing the outer cover. It was the collector's edition novelization of the last three seasons of Vanguard: Heroes of New York. He'd never adored that show as had many of his peers, hadn't even seen a single episode of the last season, but Izuku still hid a hero nerd somewhere in the buried depths of his heart and he wanted this book. It was expensive, really expensive. Everything was, but who cared? It wasn't as if there were anything else he wanted to spend his money on (well, maybe some cookies later) and the idea of saving for after the war was laughable for a myriad of reasons.
"English?" Arashiro raised an eyebrow as Izuho joined her in line. "I'm fluent," he shrugged.
"Oh. Cool. I found this, see? It's a bunch of tea recipes and their history. I'm hoping I can learn a few new ones."
"I've said this before, but your quirk is so cool. I wish I could make tea appear like magic." Arashiro giggled. "Well, your quirk is pretty cool, too."
"It would be if it worked on command for large objects," Izuho replied dryly, playing down his abilities as he always did.
She shrugged. "Well, we can't all be generals, right?"
The clerk clearly couldn't read any English and Izuho didn't get a second glance as he tucked his purchase into the brown paper bag provided. This book would probably be banned by the hero- hating PLF if it were in Japanese... or maybe not. The American hero system--if it could even be called that--was very different from the Japanese version and the main characters in Vanguard were often private investigators and vigilantes, or even outright criminals on occasion. It was hard to say whether the PLF would find Vanguard to be objectionable media worth banning.
"What've you actually got?" Arashiro asked as they made their way back to their new accommodations.
He didn't even consider brushing her off or lying. "It's a novelization of Vanguard." "The TV show?"
"Yeah. I used to like it and, you know, being in prison and stuff I didn't get to see the last season..." He usually implied he'd been an Angband prisoner for months rather than weeks.
"Ugh. Sorry, well, glad you'll get to catch up now, even if actually seeing the show would be better." Arashiro gazed longingly at the movie theater as they passed it by again.
"Yeah. Vanguard's probably not exactly the kind of stuff I should be reading, but it was in the PLF's store so it can't really be objectionable, right?"
"'Course not. I liked the first season and I saw a few episodes of the second and third. I'd ask to read it after you but I doubt I could. I was never good with English. What season is Vanguard on now, anyway?"
"The seventh is probably airing right now in America," Izuho shrugged. "This is a novelization of seasons four through six." A clock tower hidden somewhere in the buildings to the north began to
chime, its great booming voice informing them that it was fifteen minutes to six. "I guess we need to head back now."
"Yeah. We'd better hurry, actually. I hope the other guys are paying attention to their watches."
The PLF was arrogant enough, here in their inner sanctum, to send guards out alone, something you should never do, but the PLF was not so arrogant as to forgo quarter hour radio checks, security cameras at every corner, and random rounds, meaning the time at which Izuho started and ended his patrol, and the time when he passed his sister guard headed in the opposite direction, could not be reliably predicted.
The place had eight stories, four above ground, four below, well, at least five below... but the foundation levels weren't exactly habitable.
Izuho made his way through the upper floor offices at a half jog. Most of the building embraced a horrible open office plan, the sort where everyone fantasized about having a cubicle someday while a few lucky souls tucked themselves away in personal offices. It was a crowded open office, too, with thirty people packed into the floor, desks back to back, even during the night shift.
Re-Destro--smug expression plastered on his haunting face--watched over the workers from a desk in the far corner. Something must be going well for him to smile that way. That was too bad, and that smile was just upsetting. There was just enough hint of his blood relation to Chris in that ever so vaguely familiar expression to send jolts of horrified revulsion through Izuku's body. He always sped through Re-Destro's floor.
Izuho shouldered his newly assigned weapon--a modern, fully automatic rifle--into a more comfortable position as he trotted down the stairs and circled through a significantly quieter floor. Magne, working unusually late, watched over affairs here. The long-haired general half lay on a couch, typing painstakingly on a laptop and scribbling on paper forms when necessary. Her eyes shone with pain, face contorting when she stretched too far.
Izuku had been lucky. His bite from War Dog had obviously been tended to by a powerful healing quirk with minimal delay--chances were the same woman Switcher called to help him when he was shot had fixed him up--and the bite hadn't been in a critical location nor as deep as it could have been. War Dog hadn't just nipped Izuku, but she hadn't taken a chunk out of him, either. Other than when the werewolf was nearby or he contorted his arm in a very unusual way, the scar wasn't a bother.
Magne was not lucky. She had been mauled, and was likely missing large sections of her stomach. The PLF had healers--Fossa had seen one for the stab wound Nagant left in his wrist--but none of their generalists were as powerful as Recovery Girl. The PLF had specialists who could do things the Healing Heroine couldn't, but when it came to instantly closing wounds and healing broken
bones, Recovery Girl's quirk was unmatched among her enemy. Whoever had treated Magne had done their best, certainly, but it hadn't been nearly enough. Every time Izuho saw the general, she appeared to be miserable and often agonized. None doubted that she would never fully recover. The PLF had relegated her to running some less important logistics and organizing relief efforts. They hadn't quite thrown her aside like damaged goods left to rot, but it probably felt as if they had.
Izuho made swift rounds through the ground floor entry halls, public spaces overflowing with propaganda in the form of museum-style exhibits and paintings. There was one huge canvas depicting Shigaraki dressed like Napoleon and riding a horse. It was the most tasteless piece of drivel Fossa had seen in a long time. The public rooms were decorated in opulent hard wood and marble, a despicable show of decadence when just one floor up Magne was trying to arrange food and lodging for refugees who had nothing but rags to their names.
The spy swiped his ID badge--biometrics were too hard to implement for any but the most secretive parts of this building due to the increasingly dire electronics shortage--and descended to the labs.
Fossa prowled along gray linoleum floors past laboratory after laboratory. Every ten meters, another glowing sign on the ceiling said "Laser On" or "Danger: Electromagnet in Use. Twelve Tesla magnetic field. No pacemakers" or something similarly dire. Every door had some sort of warning sign on it, whether that be "Radioactive Materials" or "Class 4 Laser Device" or just "Biohazard." It wasn't exactly up to UA support department code, where every lab would have the MSDS plastered to the door to inform first responders of the exact chemicals in use and what their hazards might be as well as first aid and poison control information. In a top secret lab maybe that safety standard wasn't practical. Or maybe Shigaraki just didn't care who was burned to death by LAH or died from plutonium poisoning.
The hallways were well lit at least, although the pink-tinged fluorescent lights were almost as unnerving as darkness. It was, unfortunately, silent as deep space during Izuho's night shift. There were probably still some people working, but they were the quiet as mice types. It was disconcerting, especially when combined with the endless eyes of the security cameras crawling over his skin.
Izuho turned to the next stairwell and descended again.
The labs on this floor were much larger, and there was an occasional, muffled howl audible through the thick walls. This was the floor where the bulk of the nomu experimentation was carried out. Behind those clinical, gray walls dozens if not hundreds of people--many of them Chain prisoners--were suffering fates worse than death.
Something would be done about it. Fossa would do something about it. He'd done something about Misaki and Nagant, so he would find a way to do something about this, too, no matter how difficult or dangerous it proved to be.
Down another flight of stairs... a few more labs, store rooms, then he reached the window-studded wall offering a clear view of the boilers, generators, and incinerators, all hard at work burning more natural gas than the rest of the PLF's makeshift city combined. A dozen pilot flames flickered in the semidarkness, status lights blinking softly.
One more set of stairs down. He could feel the depth here, as if the air became thicker and cooler. A vague scent of hot metal and ozone filtered up the unfinished stairwell.
He didn't like this part at all. The deepest active floor was open, like a warehouse, with hulking pieces of equipment surrounded by construction frames scattered across the concrete expanse,
shadows proliferating despite the blazing floodlights. Izuho circled above the scene on a catwalk. The scientists who worked down here were specialists and they needed their sleep. Only a few assistants and welders remained at this time of night. Cages of chain link and reinforced bars-- currently empty but often occupied by animals or nomu or... maybe just normal people--lined one of the walls. Heavy doors likely pillaged from bank vaults sealed away private working spaces in the corners. Pipes and wires crisscrossed the floor and dangled from the ceiling like roots growing through a burrow. Dumpsters full of scrap bound for the floor's secondary incinerator waited by an articulated door. The overwhelming hot-metal-blood-rain scent, so reminiscent of the UA attack portal, intensified. Whatever they were doing down here it was bad.
The entrance to the foundation level stairs loomed as Izuho finished circling the room. Whatever had happened below this floor, even Shigaraki and his ilk found it necessary to seal the doors shut with concrete and slap biohazard, three blade radiation, and terrifying fire code signs over the entrance. "Not only will you be killed if you go down here, but it will hurt terribly the whole time you are dying," the signs implied.
Izuho slipped back into the stairwell upwards and headed for the loading docks. There were no trucks in the echoing room, the last having departed as midnight drew near. After a quick lap across the oil-stained asphalt, the spy completed his rounds with a quick check in to the security room, simply calling out, "this is Mihara Izuho, all's well, check in code 1514," over his radio.
"Acknowledged," the security room replied, "next code is 1316." It wasn't a full proof verification of identity. Somebody could listen in and steal the next code, after all. The PLF wasn't always as smart as they thought they were.
Izuho paced back to the top floors, ascending all the way to the roof where empty helipads awaited traffic and fume hood vents steamed into the cold air. The spy checked for intruders and watched the ever-present search lights sweep across the sky, then turned back to the stairwell to start the whole process over again. Only six more hours to go. It wasn't so bad, certainly better than standing in one place for an eight hour shift, and he had lots of time to think.
First thing first... he needed a way to get into the sealed laboratories in the basement. Those were locked with biometrics. He couldn't just swipe a scientist's credentials. Sneaking in would be exceedingly difficult... or it would be if it weren't for those fume hoods.