章 514: Local.

Afton pokes her in the forehead of her helmet, "Calm down. We'll find her, and we'll kick Elijah in the balls while we're at it, so chill." he says placatingly,

Veronica releases a sigh but doesn't say anything else, instead, turning her attention to the rest of the town. Honestly, there wasn't all that much to see, aside from the sprawling rooftops it was difficult to spot anything that indicated what distract they were in, what building was which, or what wasn't completely covered in fog.

They could see a few streets heavy with fog, but aside from that it was a gamble attempting to enter any buildings. Just opening a door could release fog onto you and burn you to death, so the whole town was basically a death trap.

With nothing else left to do, the trio starts hopping from one roof to another, hoping to find some indication of where Christine was, or where they could even go without being swarmed by Ghosts... Every time they touched the ground, Elijah would activate a siren that would bring more creatures towards them, making it impossible to go anywhere...

Still, at least they now knew that Elijah was in a security station or someplace that allowed him access to the area's systems.

"Urgh! This is getting us nowhere!" Veronica groans, though Afton and Anja were feeling similar sentiments.

"Yeah, but we don't really have any other options, so persistence is key." Afton states.

Veronica just shakes her head, and is about to retort when she spots movement off in the distance... The other's also notice the faint figure, moving swiftly and almost gracefully, unlike how the Ghosts get around...

The figure vanishes into an alleyway and Afton quickly hops to the next roof towards it, "Come on, this might be our key outta here." he says.

The group continues moving across the rooftops, and eventually drop down onto a balcony to see if they could find the figure. Afton pokes his head through the doorway into the building and is surprised to find the entire place rigged with explosives and traps... The stairway has two shotgun traps, and an active mine on the landing. If you get past that you'd find tripwires linked to the pins of grenades that were hanging from the ceiling...

All in all, if you tripped all the traps wall bumbling through here, the entire second floor of the building would explode. Needless to say, it'd probably put any Ghosts who wander up here out of commission and prevent any more from coming up...

Come to think of it, the only reason someone would do this would be to stop the Ghosts from coming up here... Seeing as whoever had set it all up wasn't here, that meant that it was meant to protect something else... Like another path?

Afton pulls back and looks at the others, "Don't go in there, it's rigged to blow to kingdom come with a single mistake..." he says while looking around the balcony, quickly noticing the large sheet of metal linking the balcony to the next one over.

Following it, he looks into the room connected to it and finds that the stairway had been blocked off entirely. However, the place was still empty... Afton walks atop the next sheet of metal linking the balconies, and after finding a few empty rooms, he stumbles across a balcony doorway covered by sheets, he takes a peek behind it and spots lights, meaning the sheets were meant to stop the lights from attracting attention.

"Hello?" he calls out, hoping to not get attacked by a surprised resident.

...

Nobody answers, but he can hear rapid movement, meaning whoever lived here was still inside. "I'm coming in, don't shoot or we'll both regret it." he warns as he cautiously steps through, watching for any traps.

Veronica and Anja trail behind him closely, the latter making sure to utilise the others as human shields.

Soon enough, Afton eventually spots the person living here... A ghoul wearing a ragged black suit, big sunglasses, and a collar? around his neck. He was sat in a chair looking out of a large hole in his apartment wall, there was a chair next to him, and Afton could see a couple wires sticking out from it, meaning whatever was there had been hastily made, or the aesthetics weren't important.

The ghoul turns his head to look at them and was about to speak when he freezes, "W-what are you doing here in those suits of armour!?" he asks, the words unconsciously slipping from his mouth.

"What do you mean? Have you seen those things out there? I'd rather be wearing this than that suit." Afton retorts, causing the ghoul to frown.

"No. That's not what I meant, HE, would have never let you IN... D-did you kill him?" he tentatively asks, but loses hope when his collar buzzes to life.

"*Bzztch!* No. I'm not dead, nor are they able to kill me... Do not speak to them, or you know what will happen.*Bzztch!*" Elijah says through the collar before shutting off communications.

The ghoul scowls and stands from his seat, throwing his glasses at the floor and causing them to shatter, "Oh, you bastard... I'll toss you into the cloud when I find you, chaining me up like a-a dog!"

Afton takes a sideways glance at Veronica, "Another one of Elijah's victims then?" he guesses, getting a small nod but pursing his lips when he thinks to say more. "You heard him, I say anything to you and my head explodes," he taps his collar that's started to slowly and rhythmically beep, "And I know from experience that he does not lie."

Afton frowns, quickly recognising the collar as the one's formerly used at Little Yangtze to keep the ghoul prisoners properly behaved. He cuts out the microphone of his helmet and whispers to Nyx, "Do we have any way to deactivate the collar? We still have those one's that Elijah had altered in the Think Tank, right?"

"We do, sir... If you give me a moment, I could pull up their schematics." Nyx states.

Afton nods in agreement before turning his microphone back on, "What's your name?"