Icy

  Icy was lying in the green grass. A tall tree gave him shade. His red mask y beside him, while his equally red eyes looked at the distant city. He had snuck away.

  While some of the normal soldiers were busy repairing the dome, his comrades were supposed to rid the city of the predators so that the vilge could go back to everyday life. Strictly speaking, he should do the same. But Icy had other pns. Other commands.

  And no one would miss him.

  The soldier didn't just sit under the tree. No. He was waiting for someone to receive new orders. Someone from one of the other moving capitals. Once Burgstadt reached the isnd, there would be no way to meet unobserved. Mina's eyes and ears were everywhere. Just not here. Under a tree.

  Here, out of security.

  Icy had left his weapons with one of his comrades, so Minnie's tracker would think he was with the others. He had temporarily redirected internal surveilnce systems. They sent the location of his weapon, not his, to Minnie. He could also switch off the systems, but the artificial intelligence would notice that. Icy was one of the few who could. And neither Minnie nor Mina knew about it. His 'mother' had made sure of it.

  But his contact person had not yet arrived.

  It was a warm summer day. The roots of the tree moved gently underground, in search of water. The air smelled of the wildflowers that grew a few meters away. The scent was seductive. At least for normal people. Icy felt nothing. And the flowers were not interested in him either. If a person got lost in the delicate-looking flowers, he would not survive.

  These flowers were anything but delicate. Under the ground, they hid thorny roots with greedy mouths and pointed teeth. They wrapped their roots around their victims like a constrictor, paralyzed them with poisonous spikes, and then feasted on them. No living creature escaped. From the bird to him to the scaled giraffe, another monster that just died nearby.

  Icy looked at the animal struggling for its life for a moment. It had wanted to eat him. A very na?ve decision.

  It was called a giraffe because the shape of the creature was reminiscent of this animal that once lived on the pnet. It was unclear whether it had evolved from giraffes. The body was protected by hard scales. There were robust cws on the long hooves. The monster had eight eyes, like a spider, and six strong legs. The long neck was able to lengthen by three times in search of food. The animal's jaw, which was a little too rge, even bit metal. But in the end it lost to Icy. He lured it to the flowers, which now ate their feast with a gentle hum. Under the thick roots there was hardly anything of the monster to be seen. Only the head still protruded. Slowly, the monster died while staring at Icy pintively and full of hatred.

  The Shadows were no less dangerous than the monsters outside the city. Even unarmed. Well, they were never 'unarmed'. Not entirely. Hidden in their bodies were vast amounts of deadly devices that they could fall back on. Nevertheless, they carried rifles, swords, bows and arrows. Depending on your specialization. Icy was a trained swordsman, but he could also use simple firearms.

  There wasn't much human about him. And that's exactly why the flowers ignored him. To them, he was pure poison! Poison, yes. All shadows were poisonous. If the scaled giraffe had bitten him, it would have died as well. But Icy hadn't wanted to take a chance.

  Suddenly something rumbled loudly. Icy frowned as he watched bck smoke rise from the dome of the vilge. "What?" He got up, put his jacket back on, and put on the red mask. Something had happened. And it couldn't be anything good.

  Then my contact will no longer come. I'd better get back before Burgstadt's security protocols take the city out of the danger zone. He could not be left behind. His absence would put the pn in jeopardy. So he hurried down the hill towards the vilge.

  It did not take him long to notice the cause of the disaster. Expelled by his comrades, some of the predators had gone into the vilge. There they devastated everything and devoured the inhabitants. Perhaps out of revenge, if his comrades were able to kill some animals before the big cats attacked the vilge. The dome had colpsed, the vilge resembled a field of rubble.

  Incapable... Destroying the vilge was not our order. Icy approached the vilge faster than any human. How his comrades could fail so badly was a mystery to him. Is there a traitor? Was it intentional? Or a malfunction? Is there a virus in the system?

  In the vilge, normal soldiers and also Icy's brothers fought against the predators to prevent them from getting to Burgstadt. In the eyes of the huge cats, you could see their intelligence. Their attacks seemed to be coordinated. They hadn't smelled Icy yet.

  The young man nimbly approached the battlefield. He carefully stepped over gss splinters and scree, briefly feeling a slight pain in his left hand, which he ignored. He climbed over sharp-edged gss until he had overcome the former protective wall of the gss dome. The shadows had hardly any smell of their own, which is why the ravenous animals did not notice him at first. Icy climbed over torn-off arms and legs, he passed people impaled by the shattered gss of the dome or bronze-colored metal rods, he smelled blood and guts. He didn't feel sick from the smell or the sight. Icy had seen worse. He was just as indifferent to worse.

  He noticed a predator that was not fighting with the others. This one tried to pull something out from under the rubble. Icy caught a glimpse of purple curls before the cat hid this lock again.

  Is it the boy?

  He remembered the boy who had chased him out of sheer curiosity. Why had Icy let him go? He didn't know. When his supervisor asked him about it, Icy had come up with something. Shadows could see through lies, and especially to their superior, a lie never went unnoticed. But he had accepted Icy's lie. Icy hadn't questioned this.

  The boy...

  Without being aware of it, the Shadow approached the big cat, he grabbed its tail and pulled on it. The animal roared angrily, but it ignored him. Icy raised his eyebrows. This was a female. And by the bulge of her belly, he could tell that she had recently had offspring. Offspring that his brothers had probably killed long ago.

  He reached for his firearm, but he found nothing. Shaking his head, he stretched out his hand and fired. A bright light hit the animal, which roared angrily and colpsed.

  "You won't kill him." Icy's voice sounded monotonous, almost bored.

  A poison arrow was stuck in the animal's neck. Icy knocked some dirt off his clothes and sauntered over to the pile of rubble under which the boy was crouching. The boy's purple curls were almost bck with soot, blood stuck to him as he pressed a bag to him. "You can get out. I'll take you to Burgstadt."

  Icy held his hand in the boy's hiding pce.

  "You're bleeding!" answered a low, trembling voice.

  "Ah." Icy pulled his hand away again. "Then you'd better not touch me. Come on out. Time to go."

  "Is it really safe?"

  "Next to me? Yes."

  "Okay?"

  The boy crept timidly out from under the rubble and pressed the torn bag trembling to him. Icy saw the edge of a book sticking out of the hole. "Thank you."

  Is the book so important? Or is there something more precious in it? Icy nodded. "Follow me."

  sasi