Fallen World: The Complete Trilogy

by Tom Jones

  The fox looked at the sky, and he could see that it was definitely daylight. This would make his initial infiltration a bit more difficult. He knew that any guard that was stationed outside would be able to see him easier than if it was night. The black clothing that the fox was wearing was not really helping either, but Arcades’ fur was black anyways. Arcades remembered the interior of the building, and he knew that it was fairly dim inside. The walls were either dark gray or black, and the fox knew that he would have less chances of being caught inside rather than outside. He would also be able to easily see the guards inside of the building due to the fact that they wore UCP, for he would be able to see them even easier outside. Arcades was starting to wonder why UCP stood for Universal Camouflage Pattern.

  Setting his mind back on the mission, the fox looked at the complex, but he couldn’t see any men wearing UCP standing guard on the ground. He looked up, and he could definitely see a few guards that were stationed in the watchtowers. From the distance that Arcades was standing at, he couldn’t see what the men were armed with, but he definitely could tell that there were people in the towers. Arcades waited until it looked as if the men were looking away before the fox began moving towards the complex. The fox tried to keep his profile as small as possible to avoid being seen, but this was becoming more difficult for his legs the more he went. The fox slowed himself down, and he stopped behind a tree again. This time he was considerably closer to the complex than he was before. Arcades got down on his knees, and he tried to peek around the tree to see if he could spot another one of the security doors that he had previously used to escape. He figured that his keycard would work with those doors.

  The fox looked to his left, and he could see the dirt road that he had seen the Oshkosh L-ATVs travel out from when they were previously looking for him. Arcades now realized that he had been in this exact place before. Arcades looked up past the complex, and he could see the hangar area that had launched the MH-60X. This time the hangar roof looked to be closed, and this made the fox wonder how long it took Omega to open the door and launch a helicopter. Apparently it was not long, as the fox had witnessed the MH-60X launch within minutes of his escape.

  Still kneeling behind the tree, Arcades peeked around the right side of the tree. He spotted the security door that he used during his last escape. Arcades squinted, and the fox was able to see the keycard scanner that was on the door. The fox looked upwards, and he could see that he was almost standing in the guard tower blind spot. He figured that he would be in the blind spot once he went to move to the door. That means he would just have to make sure that no personnel were out in the yard. Arcades looked downwards, and he was scanning the inner yard for potential threats. The yard looked pretty clear, and the fox did not see any armed humans wandering about. One other thing Arcades was worried about was the potential of security cameras; However, the fox thought that he would have seen these during his first venture inside of the facility.

  Arcades was now waiting for the right time to make his way to the security door. He began to collect his breath in order to build up the courage and stamina to break back into the prison. After all, the fox did not even know what he would do if he accomplished this mission. The fox held his breath once he could see that the guard began to look the other way. Arcades could feel his ungloved palms begin to sweat as he became anxious; However, he knew that it was now time for him to begin his infiltration. Arcades began moving forwards towards the door while moving towards the guard tower blind spot at the same time. Arcades was constantly watching the guard tower, even though he knew that this would not change anything. If the fox was caught outside this early in the mission, he knew that he would not have an easy way of escaping. He reminded himself that it would be no easier once he made it inside of the complex. Arcades reached his destination, and he looked directly up at the guard tower. He was glad that they would not be able to see him now. Arcades briefly scanned the yard again to make sure that nobody was roaming the relatively large yard before removing his keycard from his shorts. The fox held his breath as he scanned the keycard. He could hear a beep, and he watched as the red light on the panel changed to green. Arcades opened the door, and he let himself in.

  Arcades now had gotten into the yard, but this would be only one part of his mission. He still did not get the hard part out of the way. The fox moved further into the yard while still looking around for humans that would see him. Arcades now noticed an entrance to the complex itself, but he did not know if there would be people waiting for him on the other side. Arcades decided that he would climb to a higher level before making his entrance. After all, there were some stairs nearby. Arcades wondered if he would be able to find some kind of maintenance entrance, as he felt that a Level 5 keycard should have the security clearance required in order to open it. The fox began ascending the stairs while focusing on making the least noise possible. Being barefoot, this was easy for Arcades. He also was not carrying the equipment that he normally did, so generating the minimal amount of noise proved to be even easier for the fox compared to his other operation.

  As the fox reached the highest point of the staircase, he looked around to assure that nobody was looking back at him. Once Arcades was certain that he was still undetected, he moved behind a piece of the building that would be able to conceal him from people that could possibly be nearby. The fox used his ears to listen for potential hostile forces, but he did not hear any footsteps. Arcades remembered what the human guards wore, and he was pretty certain that the guards would be pretty audible given the amount of equipment that they were wearing. The fox continued to look around for a better entrance. He did not want to retrace his steps back from the first time he was in the complex, as he remembered that the layout of the interior was rather confusing due to the fact that most of the corridors looked the same. Arcades wondered if this was some kind of psychological warfare application. After all, the entire point of the facility seemed to revolve around psychological warfare. Except that warfare involved torturing anthros to no end.

  As Arcades rounded another corner, he noticed that there was another staircase that he would be able to utilize. The fox figured that the deeper he would be able to enter the complex, the better. The fox figured that the perimeter was the area that had the most security, but Arcades felt that there was a logical reason behind this. This was because not too many people even knew about the existence of the complex, so they would only have to protect it from people on the outside, as Arcades was pretty sure that there was a rigorous screening process for employees working at the facility. Arcades did not see too many humans during his first bout. The fox ruled this out as it was probably hard to hire people to witness anthros being sexually tortured to submission. He could barely fathom how they found people to do this in the first place. Arcades accepted that he wouldn’t get the answers to all of his questions at the current moment.

  The fox shook his head as he returned his mind to the mission. He knew that he was wasting time by letting his mind wander, but he really did not want to keep thinking about what was waiting for him inside of the facility if he was captured. Arcades never operated well under stress, so he tried to keep himself from thinking about the bad outcomes since they would stress him out as well. The fox began moving up the next staircase. As he moved, he could feel that his tail was rubbing up against something, but when he looked back, it was only the concrete that the staircase was made out of. This staircase was also not covered by anything, so the fox had to make sure that nobody was looking at him; However, it would be difficult to do this, as the only people that he had seen were operating out of the watchtowers. Since they were in an elevated position, they would be able to see the fox out in the open.

  As the fox made it to the peak of the staircase, he could see that there was another door that he could potentially use. In order to judge how deep Arcades thought he was in the facility, he looked at the watchtowers. He could see that elevation wise, he was now halfway up the
watchtower. The fox looked upwards, but he noticed that the building that he was standing on was only a few more stories tall. This made the fox wonder how many anthros were detained in this facility. This made him further question if the staffing that the complex had was adequate for carrying out the task that he witnessed previously. Arcades did remember at least one helicopter launching as well as a decently sized ground unit that was searching for him. This made the fox wonder if there were even more people that were working in this complex that he did not initially see. Arcades remembered that Facility Eleven only had one thousand anthros total, but he did not see any human personnel besides the group that was waiting for the helicopter.

  Arcades wondered if he did all of the climbing for nothing. He wondered if the complex consisted of an underground portion of the prison. Arcades knew that he had entered the complex from the tallest building, but he did not know where he was once he crawled through the ventilation system. This also made the fox wonder how he was able to escape in the first place given the sheer size of the entire complex. Arcades felt that he was lucky, but at the same time, he knew that luck had nothing to do with his success. Arcades looked at the door that was in front of him, and he realized that he was practically procrastinating. The fox really did not want to break into this secret prison; However, he knew that nobody else would do this, so he was the only one that would even attempt to do something like this. Arcades inserted his keycard into the slot. The light on the door switched from red to green, and Arcades let himself in the building.

  As the fox entered the building, he immediately recognized the interior. However, Arcades knew that he had not been in this particular room before, as he did not exit from this pathway. The fox looked at the dark gray walls, and he saw the familiar dim lighting again. Arcades knew that he could not get distracted by the aesthetics of the building, so he continued moving. As the fox moved down the hallway, he looked all around the ceiling and the walls to discover that the corridor was rather featureless. In fact, the more Arcades looked at the corridor and compared it to his previous venture, the more it stuck to him how dull the place was. The fox was beginning to wonder what the complex was used for before the Omega Foundation acquired it. Arcades already knew that Facility Eleven was acquired by Omega before they used it for their purposes, but he was not sure with this facility. Even Facility Eleven was not lacking as many features. Arcades began to think about the possibility that Omega built this facility all by themselves. The fox wondered how long it took for them to finish construction for the massive complex.

  The fox reached the end of the hallway, and he was greeted with another door that required a keycard to open. Arcades removed the card from his pocket, and he inserted it into the slot. The door opened like the others did, and Arcades carefully looked around the corner before entering the next area. The last thing Arcades wanted was to be caught by Omega here. Arcades was met by another corridor, but this one was split into two paths that both looked equally identical to each other. Arcades looked to his left, and he could see a keycard door at the other end of the hall. He then looked to his right to see practically the exact same thing. The fox wondered if this was some kind of trap or trick, so he looked around the ceiling for security cameras or an equivalent device. To his surprise, the fox did not see any equipment that was visibly monitoring him. The fox was hoping that he was not overlooking anything.

  Looking both ways several times, Arcades continued to wonder which path he should travel with. The fox thought about how employees navigated this facility, but then he remembered that he had not seen any Omega Foundation personnel since he infiltrated the facility building. He also remembered that the last time he was in this complex, most of the personnel were in the cell blocks, and this was what Arcades was looking for. The fox deducted that he would likely find hostile personnel in the prison area rather than wherever he was now. Not wanting to waste anymore time, the fox decided to start walking down the right path. As the fox proceeded, he reminded himself of an old saying that he taught himself, ‘You can’t go wrong if you go right.’ However, Arcades knew that this saying did not always hold true. He just decided to trust it for this time. Continuing down the hallway, the fox briefly looked behind himself. As he could watch his tail move alongside with him, he stopped to see how similar the other pathway looked. This made Arcades wonder if he was actually going the right way. The fox did not possess floor plans of the building or a map, so he decided that his guess was as good as anybody else’s.

  Reaching the keycard door, Arcades placed his ear up against the door in order to hear if there was anybody behind it. Not hearing anything, the fox slipped the keycard into the slot, and the door unlocked itself. Stowing away the keycard once more, Arcades noticed that something was standing in the doorway. When the fox looked up, his heart jumped. Arcades was standing in front of another anthro, but this anthro was blankly staring at him through an M50 gas mask with smoked lenses. Arcades could not tell if the anthro was even looking at him. The fox quickly looked the anthro over. The anthro seemed to be a canoid of some breed, but he could not tell which since he could not see the anthro’s face. The anthro was clad in a black skin-tight suit which exposed only the anthro’s brown furred hands, feet, tail, and part of the face. This anthro looked almost like the anthros that Arcades photographed in the cells.

  The fox instinctively grabbed the anthro’s arms, and he quickly yanked him into the hallway that he had just come from. The anthro did not seem to resist. Arcades continued holding onto the anthro as he tried to remove the gas mask from the anthro. As the fox was working on removing the mask, he could see that the anthro was also collared. The collar was the same as what all of the anthros Arcades previously witnessed were wearing. Arcades finally managed to figure out how to remove the mask from the anthro, and the brown furred canine was only sitting on the floor in front of the fox. Arcades found it strange that the anthro was not even resisting in any form. The fox lifted the mask from the canine, and he briefly inspected it before tossing it aside. Arcades continued to hold onto the anthro in order to control as much of the situation as he could, and the fox quietly spoke to the anthro, “Hey buddy. Are you alright?” The fox was not met with any response.

  Unsure of how to proceed next, the fox decided that he should search the anthro. For all Arcades knew, the brown canine could be carrying something that the fox would be able to use further into the complex. The fox gently sat the canine on his stomach, and he visually looked him over. Arcades was about to search the anthro, but he remembered that his hands were not gloved, and he did not want to risk searching the anthro without protective clothing. Arcades saw for himself what Omega did to the anthros at the facility, and he did not want to risk contracting an illness from an infected anthro. Arcades did not know if Omega was planning some sort of biological weapon either. He had to play this safe, as he knew that nobody else would finish this mission if the fox aborted or failed the mission.

  Arcades returned to his default stance, and he looked down at the anthro as he slowly backed away. The fox did not speak again to the anthro, as he felt that it would not prove to be fruitful. After all, the anthro seemed to be under mind control of some sort, much like Cipher and Pixy were when Arcades rescued them from the train. The fox used his left hand to feel for the door as he continued to slowly back up, and Arcades felt for his keycard using his right hand. The fox’s left hand was the first to come into contact with the door. When this happened, Arcades attempted to locate the card scanner with his left hand while he worked on pulling the keycard out of his shorts. All the while, the fox was keeping a direct line of sight with the anthro. One part of Arcades was expecting the anthro to stand up, but the fox was now wondering if the canine would even do that.

  Arcades transferred the keycard over to his left hand, and he found the keycard scanner by feel. The door unlocked again, but Arcades moved backwards to the next room. A risky move, but the fox was more concerned about the anthro that had al
ready seen him. When the door closed, the fox turned around, and he breathed a sigh of relief as he leaned up against the door. However, Arcades soon remembered that the anthro that he had just encountered was wearing the same type of gas mask that he had seen during his first bout. Arcades remembered how he was briefly pursued by a couple anthros with M50 masks during his first escape. This made the fox wonder why that brown canine did not bother to chase him. Arcades wondered if the anthros had to be told when to pursue somebody, as he didn’t see them chasing him until after Arcades was targeted for capture during his escape.

  The fox suddenly made the mental connection. Omega had somehow managed to use mind control to such an extent that they managed to bring anthros to a state of mindlessness. Arcades deducted that the anthro that he had encountered was merely inactive, and he was waiting for orders to pursue a target. After all, the fox did remember the announcement that Omega made over their PA when he was initially escaping. The fox was now starting to wonder if he was the only anthro to ever successfully escape from the facility. It all started to make sense to the fox. Many featureless corridors were constructed on purpose in order to be confusing for escapees to navigate. In lieu of human reinforcements employed by Omega, they merely used their own brainwashed anthros coupled with the confusing architecture. The fox figured that this approach was probably more economically beneficial, but exponentially immoral because of the anthros that were used.

  Arcades looked up after finally regaining his little physical strength, and he stared at yet another corridor. The fox slowly shook his head as he whispered to himself, “Oh my gosh. How long is this going to go on?” The fox began to slowly travel down the corridor, but he noticed that there was another hallway that branched off to his left and right approximately halfway through the current corridor. Arcades stopped in the middle of the intersection, and he looked to his left. The fox tried to remember which direction he entered the facility from, as he figured that one of the paths would merely lead him back outside of the facility. Arcades slowly nodded as he briefly spoke to himself again, “It’s hard enough to get out; I guess they wanted it to be hard to get in as well. Gosh, no wonder they made this place like a maze. They obviously don’t want anybody getting in or out.”