Timu's Young Adult Dystopian Fiction Novel

here's yuko again! get excited!

Chapter 17: The War Begins

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SpoilerYuko slammed his fist furiously on his desk, "WHAT DO YOU MEAN IT'S EMPTY??!"

The messenger patted his sleeve to extinguish the small fire there, "Yeah, all the diggers have escaped somehow."

Yuko took a deep breath and said calmly, "Okkayyyy I feel better now. That's, uh, pretty bad."

They bent down to collect the bits of smoldering wood that Yuko had scatted across the floor.

Yuko asked stoicly, "So, where are they all now?"

The messenger guessed, "I think they must have built a new area to hide in. We'll have to completely engineer the portal in order to look for it."

Yuko nodded, "Right, okay. Makes sense. You guys are already working on that, right?"

"Yeah, Elmer estimates they'll be done in 1.5 hours," the messenger held a drawer of partially singed documents to Yuko, "Do you want to keep these?"

Yuko glanced at the documents. "Nah, you can just toss those out."

The messenger dropped the drawer into the trash chute and resumed picking up the detritus.

They continued cleaning in silence for a couple of minutes.

"Hey, do, do you know how they managed to do it?" asked Yuko, sweeping away the last ashes into a dustpan.

The messenger looked at him carefully. "Um. They had a lot of young able-bodied people."

Yuko nodded solemnly. "Righto. So it was my fault then. Whoops."

The messenger looked around the room awkwardly. "...yup."

Yuko dumped out the ashes into the trash chute. "Okay, well, thanks for helping me clean up, and telling me about what happened. What's your name?"

The messenger said, "Uh, I'm Fred."

Yuko handed Fred a scrap of paper, "Congratulations, Fred, you're promoted."

Fred took the piece of paper. It was entirely charred black. "Oh, nice. Thanks."

Yuko dismissed Fred, "Alright! You can go now. Hey, if you see Chainwreck, can you send her in?"

Fred saluted casually and headed out the door, "No problem!"

Yuko Snait looked out through the window and thought deeply about the situation. He looked down at his employees and soldiers running to and forth, skillfully fulfilling their duties like precisely oiling the clockwork and flawlessly regulating the machines. An enormous scraping sound rang through the cavern, and people quickly moved out of the way of a huge tank rolling down the middle. The war machine was almost unrecognizable under the disarrayed mess of metal and scrap covering it. Someone had chained countless wrecks of all sorts of obliterated vehicles all over it. Clearly whoever owned this tank valued power and intimidation over speed and maneuverability.

Yuko opened the window as it drew near, and it stopped. The engines turned off, and a tall, well-built woman stepped out. She wore huge maroon armor, covered in spikes. A crunched up brown truck was mounted on her back. "It's time!" Yuko shouted down to her.

Chainwreck grinned wickedly and cracked her knuckles and the chains wrapped around them. "I've been waiting for this!" she whispered cruelly to herself.

Yuko looked down at her. After a few seconds, he shouted again, "Did you say something?"

Chainwreck opened the backdoor of the tank and pulled out a brand new mahogony desk, shiny and varnished. She tossed it up to Yuko's window, and Yuko caught it and put the desk in the center of his office. "Thanks, Chainwreck!"

Chainwreck gave Yuko a thumbs up and shouted back. "You're welcome!"

Chapter 18: Boring War Stuff

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SpoilerThe rebels had built themselves a big cozy cavern at the end of chamber 1024. They had more than enough furniture, food, clothing, and water to survive for at least 1 and a half years.

During the first two months, Grottco soldiers patrolled the abandoned tunnels. The Lounge was removed completely and the sleeping rooms had become completely inaccessible by rebels and Grottco alike.

The soldiers would find a tunnel, and go down it all the way to chamber 1024. And they would find nothing and go back and try a different tunnel. There was no more dirt in the tunnels and no new diggers.

The rebel's hideout was hidden and safe, completely undiscoverable. The rebels merely waited in peace as Grottco grew more impatient and made their next mistake.

Grottco had not generated any new energy for months, and now had to resume operations. They created new tunnels and brought in new draftees to dig. But always, these new draftees would disappear by the end of their first day, rescued by a team of rebels who would sneak out and save them.

By the 6th month, Grottco had redesigned the digging chambers. Each digger was put in their own, much larger, more open area, where the digger would dig out a large pit that would get refilled everyday, with armed guards watching them above.

Grottco was unable to send new guards after they had been stealthily taken out, and diggers continued to disappear, recruited by the rebels every day.

Grottco started making decoy diggers, to trick the rebels into saving them. This worked only once, and both the rebels and Grottco suffered two dozen casualties.

In the ninth month, the rebels were running out of food, a little earlier than they had expected. They had been eating more than necessary, and as new recruits came in, food reserves depleted faster. Now scouts had to both retrieve food and also avoid decoys, traps, and patrols. Rebel morale suffered every time a scouting party didn't make it back.

The enemy soldiers were catching on to where the rebel base was hiding. Several shortcuts and skips had to be patched out to keep the base hidden. After a full week of scouts going missing, Brian and Celune agreed that it was too dangerous to send anyone else.

The rebels started having more problems with dissatisfaction and traitors as food supplies went low. More and more were reducing their amount of exercise, slowing down excavation and construction of the tunnel elevator.

After a month and a half of desperation and doing almost nothing, the tunnel elevator was almost complete. This revelation promoted hope in the group, and work on it resumed it's original pace and it was finished in a week. They were finally ready to escape!

Chapter 19: The Siege Ends

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SpoilerYuko Snait stood waiting by the main door of Grottco. A fancy car came through and his mother stepped out.

Yuko smiled and hugged her, "Hey Mom! I wasn't expecting you. Did you come because of the good news?"

Natsy patted her son on the back. "Yes, I saw your... good news. But the reason I came was because I need to tell you that you are celebrating too early."

Yuko let go, upset. "But they haven't done anything in 2 months! Sure, they're probably still hiding in there, but they've definitely given up by now!"

Natsy shook her head. "You made one mistake a year and a half ago when you gave them all that manpower, but I thought you had learned your lesson!"

Yuko threw up his hands in despair. "Mom! Yes! I did learn my lesson. I was very careful about every move we took against them in the past year! I didn't send any more draftees than necessary, and... also.... won more battles in general i guess."

Natsy scoffed, "Yuko, Yuko. The lesson was that you shouldn't underestimate their capabilities. 2 months of inactivity, from our point of view. 2 months of progress for them! You might be right that they're slowly starving to death in there, but you'll be sorry when they reveal that something that you can't deal with!"

Yuko was silent.

Natsy nodded approvingly, "Good, keep thinking. Figure it out before it's too late. Alright, I'm leaving, bye."

Yuko waved goodbye and returned to the office. He pressed a button to make an announcement to everyone in the facility, "Okay, everyone, this is Mr. Snait, and, this is not ideal, of course, but all crews, initiate Operation B. You know what to do. As for military teams, all of you are now on duty. You have 10 minutes to get ready and report to your squad leaders. Military squad leaders, you have 5 minutes to check in with me in my office. Alright, good luck everyone."

Yuko turned off the microphone and sighed deeply. This was very risky, but, according to his mother's implications, it would be quite worth it. He set to work. One by one, squad leaders would come in, receive their orders and head off for work. In between, he would type away at the computer and get everything ready. Finally, after 12 minutes, everyone was in position. He readied his finger over the button to turn off the Dimensional Sandbox, taking one last moment to consider what he was about to do.

As a consequence, the Dimensional Sandbox would be destroyed. Grottco would have to use the weaker Operation B to generate power in the meantime, at least until a new one could be built, which could take months. And as for everyone in the Dimensional Sandbox, either they are ready or not ready. If they are ready, and they indeed had a plan, then it was too late to stop them anyway. But if they weren't ready, then now they never will.

Yuko pushed the button, and the Dimensional Sandbox shut down. Soldiers pointed their guns at the disabled portal, while other guards were positioned all around the facility, prepared for whatever the rebels were doing, if anything at all.

Chapter 20: The Tunnel Elevator

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SpoilerBrian and Celune stood in front of the crowd of rebels.

Brian finished a headcount and whispered to Celune.

Celune nodded and shouted out to everyone, "OkAY everyone. Oof. Can everyone hear me?"

There were a few "Yesses" and a few "did she ask us something?"

Celune coughed. She spoke to the front row of people, "Okay, I'm gonna shout louder so everyone can hear me. You guys be ready, I'm gonna be pretty loud."

They nodded. Celune screamed, "EVERYONE IS HERE, SO YOU SHOULD ALL BE READY TO GO. IF YOU AREN'T, THEN RAISE YOUR HAND."

No one raised their hand.

Celune rasped, "Okkkaay. Brian take over, please," and clapped her hands over her ears.

Brian yelled, "ALRIGHT GREAT LETS GO."

The crowd cheered and filed out of the room to the construction area. The tunnel elevator was an infinitely high structure made up of tunnels stacked upon each other. 1024 chambers per tunnel meant that it was 2 miles long and 10 meters wide.

The rebel army gathered into the lowest tunnel and dispersed along it. There were 128 of them, meaning they could each have 8 chambers all to their own, which was far more space than necessary. However, Diane had advised that they should remain clustered towards the first end of the tunnel to make it easier to get out when they escaped.

The screens in every chamber turned on, and Brian's digitally unrecognizable face appeared on it. "Hey, this is Brian. In case you couldn't tell. We're ready to depart. So, you guys should be prepared for Grottco to attack us immediately once we're out. When we emerge, we'll still be in here, but it'll still only be 6 inches of metal between us and their guns, so, brace yourselves. Here we go..."

Chapter 21: Infinity Rounded Down

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SpoilerCelune and Diane gave Brian the nod. Brian nodded back. He turned and looked at Timu. She blinked, then blushed and finally nodded too. She hadn't done much in the past year in terms of leading, but Celune and Brian wanted to have her around anyway whenever anything important happened. Timu appreciated that they still cared about her, but still felt kind of useless just watching them.

Brian pressed the button and time stopped within the tunnel elevator.

9 days, 5 hours, 43 minutes and 29 seconds later, Yuko turned off the Dimensional Sandbox.

And time resumed within the elevator, as it blasted out of the sandbox and up through the earth. The ground above Grottco rended apart. In a panic, soldiers fired wildly at the massive structure. Ceilings collapsed, walls broke apart and floors crumbled. Dirt, real dirt, covered almost everything.

Timu kept her balance as the floor rumbled. Brian still had his finger over the button. Diane smiled squealing, "It worked! We did it!"

Many people down the tunnel whoops in excitement.

Brian spoke through the screens again, "Okay, it's not over yet. Alright, we've got 37 floors to ascend through. Um, actually 32. Those last 5 extend higher above the ground than we need. Alright, get ready! Ascension in.... 5 seconds!"

The rebels and their belongings ascended gradually upwards, phasing through the floors and ceilings in their way.

Yuko burst out of a heap of dirt and surveyed the destruction. He estimated a 10% casualty rate for Grottco. He looked at the structure that had burst out of Sandbox's portal. It was 2 miles long, longer than Grottco itself, extending far through the earth. The sky was visible, and the sun was shining down. Yuko was not expecting something like this. He turned on the microphone and made an announcement. "Everyone! As soon as you're ready, focus fire on ... on. Shit."

The announcement system was not working, and he hurled his microphone. It burned up in the atmosphere before it hit the side of the huge metal wall.

He leapt out of what was left of his office. 7 squad leaders were looking at him. Yuko signed for them to focus fire on the top of the structure. They nodded in understanding and passed the orders to their troops.

Yuko squinted and watched. The sunlight made it hard to see what was going on up there, but the top of the structure was gradually getting shredded up. Yuko gave another signal to the squad leaders, aim a little bit downwards, where the structure is above ground level.

"This is going well so far," said Brian. The sound of bullets smashing into the side of the wall had started to fade away. They were about halfway up the elevator.

Diane's enthusiasm had faded away. "This isn't good. They're probably aiming at the top of the elevator. We better be careful not to go so high."

The metallic banging and clanging on the walls was starting up again, gradually growing more frequent as they neared the top. A loud, ominous crunching noise could be heard above them. It grew louder and louder.

The top 4 floors of the elevator collapsed under their own weight, pinching the last floor above ground. Half a mile of that section peeled agonizingly off of the distant lengths of the elevator, and finally broke off. Yuko looked at the massive slab of metal falling down at his location. Yuko looked around. Several of his workers were scrambling around the rubble, the increasingly large shadow overtaking them as they fled the area of impact. Yuko identified the weakest point, and jumped up and punched the falling metal heap right back into the elevator.

The rebels had already abandoned the vertical movement approach, and were running down the length of the tunnels. Groups of rebels, stranded across multiple floors, ran through flames and shrapnel only to find the tunnels ending quickly into a wall of natural dirt. More and more of the tunnel exploded apart, not only from the assault of Grottco weaponry, but also because the escapees were very used to making their way through obstacles with brute strength.

Finally, Timu smashed out of the side of the tunnel and onto the surface of the earth. She regrouped with a disappointingly small group of survivors running away from the disaster. They ran into the forest and kept running, trying to stay together, but some certainly fell behind and were lost along the way.

Two dozen rebels sat around in a forest clearing, panting and sweating.

"That.... huff.... went worse than I'd hoped..." cried Timu.

Diane patted her back. "It's... alright. There's more survivors. I just don't know where. Somewhere around. Don't worry."

Timu hugged Diane. "Thanks. Yeah."

Timu and Diane went around to the other survivors, asking them if they were okay and not to worry. From the sun's position and the smoke in the sky, they could tell that Grottco was to the north, about 6 miles away based on Diane's estimate.

They all sat around in a circle around a campfire. Timu looked at some notes she had scribbled on a burger wrapper.

"Okay everyone. Let's.... rest tonight. Tomorrow, we'll head east and try to find more of our friends. We've got two or three days of food. As soon as dinner is done cooking, we need to put out this fire. We'll want... two people at a time keeping watch. You guys, while you eat figure out how tired you are and, then the sentries can take turns appropriately. I expect at least a couple of survivors catching up, so, make sure not to confuse enemies with allies while keeping watch. That's... all I guess. Enjoy dinner and rest well..."

Timu enjoyed her first meal back in the real world, a cheeseburger. They did it. Around three years since she got drafted, she was finally free. But there was a lot of work ahead. After the first shift of sentry duty, she curled up at the base of a tree and swiftly fell asleep.