Façades

[Proto Man]

With the attack a few hours behind them, Proto Man and Mireya found themselves in a makeshift office. While not inside the town’s walls, the structure was adjacent to them, and from the look of things, it was supposed to serve as an administrative area to coordinate orders and information between various sectors of the walls. From the lack of staff and the general appearance of chaos and disorganization, it looked like nothing had been done in a few weeks.

“I can tell you’re judging the place,” Dmitri muttered as he led the two into a private room. “If you can imagine, these little nerve centers were much more effective when they were first launched. Dobson came up with the idea to have entire portions of the walls operated from buildings like this to try and make things more efficient. They ran smoothly before the funding was cut off, and to make matters worse, they wound up requisitioning some of the best officers to have them go and die atop the walls fending off darkspawn and monsters.”

“That’s terrible,” Mireya muttered as she glanced around the room. It didn’t look like this was where Dmitri worked, which led her to believe they were just in some dead man’s work space. “Why did you pull us into here? Shouldn’t we have an audience with Dobson or the Mayor at this point? What happened this morning is some serious business.”

“I know,” Dmitri interjected, his shoulders slightly sagged as he leafed through some papers on the desk. The other two were left to wonder if their makeshift commander had known this room’s prior occupant. Before either could ask that question, the soldier looked back up at them and shook his head. “I need you two to swear that you will not relay this information beyond anyone in your garrison. We have all the other towers in this sector on high alert, and we’re saying that you spotted some behemoths roaming too close to the town walls.”

“Wait a minute…” Mireya interrupted, her expression souring as she realized what was happening. “You’re covering this up?”

“Not out of malice… you must believe me when I say that,” the man replied. “The town is on the verge of either collapsing onto itself. If word that hostile invaders tried to infiltrate and killed a quarter of a tower’s garrison in the process escapes to the public there will be panic on the streets. In the event of riots, this town will cease to exist. We don’t have the manpower to simultaneously garrison all the walls and suppress anyone.”

Proto Man, if he had a stomach, would have felt it twist up at the notion of the morning’s events being whitewashed. “What about the skeletons? They were helping the drow… surely you can’t overlook that, right?”

“We won’t,” Dmitri replied.

“Do you know how that could happen?” Mireya asked.

“No.”

“So you have zero leads? Who creates those things in the first place? That should be the first person you pull in for questioning!”

“I’m sorry, but that information is classified.”

“How many of those skeletons do you have walking around the towers? Do you realize what would happen if more than just four or five of them decide to start killing the people they’re designed to protect? You’re afraid of riots, but if those creatures go rogue, you’re going to have a massive bloodbath on your hands,” Mireya shouted, her skin taking on a reddish hue as she struggled to contain herself.

“That’s another reason why this story can’t become public knowledge. Do you realize what would happen if these people thought all those walking corpses could be compromised? This would be a ghost town or worse in a matter of days. Darkshire would cease to exist.”

Mireya snorted, and although she said nothing, her thoughts on that matter were obvious.

“Darkshire must stand,” Dmitri shouted, prompting the woman to wipe the grin from her face. “We’re the only ones between these monsters and the rest of the Omniverse!”

“Yea, you did a great job stopping the Blight from spreading into my verse, didn’t you?” Mireya rasped, and with that, the two fell silent for a few moments.

When someone spoke again, it was Proto Man, who tried his hardest to remain a voice of reason in a stressful situation. “What about the rest of Tower Six? What will happen to the soldiers who serve there?”

“Most of them will remain, as they have sworn to keep this to themselves. Those who couldn’t be convinced or did not seem trustworthy enough have been relocated to service in a branch of the militia where we can keep a close eye on them.”

The preteen machine nodded, although he didn’t quite understand the hidden meaning to the officer’s response. “Should we report back? Surely you should retain our services for a little while longer. The drow are not the type to simply vanish into the night forever… they will be back.”

Dmitri nodded. “I appreciate your willingness to stick around a while longer. The two of you might have to pull a few more shifts, but we still need the help.”

“Eventually you’re going to have to give us more information about what’s going on,” Mireya interjected before the man could dismiss them. “We have a right to know, we’ve worked with both Dobson and Boone in the past.”

“Maybe,” Dmitri muttered. “You’re dismissed… please report back to Tower Six.”

Although she was still fuming, Mireya let herself be guided out of the small office by the preteen machine. Once they were clear of the little room and the few workers that remained in the rest of the building, Proto Man looked up at her and frowned.

“This town is on the verge of collapse… it’s almost like it’s trying to will itself to die.”

“If something doesn’t happen soon, this whole place is going to either burn down, be massacred, or be abandoned,” the woman shot back as they left the structure and made their way toward their assigned tower once more. “I know you want to stick around, but we need to leave, Blues. We can’t be here for when this boils over. We’ve done enough for these people by stopping the Blight… you even went far enough to help beat that giant monster and bang up a few drow raiding parties. We need to let them sort themselves out without our help.”

Proto Man frowned heavily as they passed through the entranceway and started to ascend the staircase toward the barracks. “I know you’re right, but I still feel like we should stay here until they say they don’t need us.”

“I just hope we can stay alive until then,” the half-night elf muttered.