Chapter 101 - Disappearance (5)

"Looks like your department of security is just like your intelligence wing, Amanda." Arnold chuckled as Amanda who was accompanied by a few soldiers, came to the workshop.

"..."

Amanda wanted to smack that laugh out of Arnold's face but then she realised that it was indeed a fault on the army's part that the impostors were able to enter the premises, so she decided to keep quite about it, "Where are they?"

"They are Inside. Come on." Arnold led them inside the workshop where the had 'imprisoned' the impostors.

"...you froze them to the ground- Why the hell are they in their underwear!?" Amanda looked at Arnold and shook her head.

"For your first question, usually I don't need to tie up the people that I fight with, so I did what I could and for your second question, one of them had a weapon concealed inside his clothes so I had to make sure that the others weren't carrying an explosive or some shit." Arnold shrugged his shoulders, "It was all to protect your base. Something that should've been your responsibility."

"Alright alright I get it, you don't have to rub it in my face for the rest of my life." Amanda massaged her temple as she continued, "So did they gave you any information about who are they and how they got in here?"

"It wasn't easy but I did, manage get a few things out of them. They said they are the members of the church, The church of Chaos, if I remember it correctly and no, chaos isn't a symbol. According to them, Chaos is the name of their goddess." Arnold replied, "And, someone on the inside the base, helped them to sneak in."

"God! It's that bunch again... anyways, did they mention who the person was?" Amanda asked, her eyes still on the intruders.

"Nope. I was just about to ask them that when you called. By the way, would you mind telling me, what do you mean by 'It's that bunch again'?"

"Let's take care of them first." She looked at the officers standing next to her, "Take them to the holding cells, I'll deal with them later."

The officers obediently followed the order, and with Arnold's help took them out.

"So... You wanna talk now?"

"Alright... It's gonna be a long story so buckle up." She said and both of them sat on the chairs, "The Church Of Chaos, COC, for short, is a terrorist organisation that's led by the one whom they refer to as 'The Priestess'. Identity of this priestess, is still unknown. As for their goal, it is... to annihilate the remaining American populous, so that the monsters could have a free reign over America. I know I know, it sounds crazy that these bastards want to do something like that but it's the truth."

"So if it's a terrorist organisation, then why hasn't the army or the government or whatever the heck runs this country now, do something about it?"

"Don't be stupid. Of course we took action against them when we first found out about them. We sent out our best warriors to put an end to the church, but it wasn't an easy task, as they keep changing their locations frequently, while staying outside the boundaries, in the wastelands. The warriors, who we sent out to track and destroy the church ended up getting MIA." (Author's note : MIA means 'missing in action'. This term is used to refer to a member of the armed forces who is missing in action.)

"And that's why you stopped sending people to chase after them." Arnold stroked his beard.

"Look it might seem that we gave up, but we didn't had a choice! We were already short on manpower and we couldn't just keep sending our soldiers out in the wasteland to investigate random locations while we waited for them to disappear just like the others." The usual cool and collected persona of hers disappeared and she lashed out on Arnold.

"I understand what you're saying, and I'm not blaming you or anyone else for the choice that y'all made. It was your call and you did the right thing. I'm just saying is that, you don't need to worry about them as I might know where their base is."

"Say WHAT!" Amanda got up from the chair she was sitting on as if suddenly thorns popped out of them, "YOU KNOW WHERE THEIR BASE IS!?"

"Woah! Woah! Calm down a bit. All I'm saying is that their base has to be nearby."

"And what makes you say that?" Amanda intently looked at Arnold, her happiness disappeared in a moment.

"You really aren't a bright one are you?" Arnold smirked, "For someone having 'The best intelligence network' you're quite... dense."

"I'm still waiting for your answer."

"Ok but first tell me, how long has it been since you guys found me?" Arnold asked Amanda as if he was asking something to a 10 year old.

"Three days ago..."

"And how long has it been since you found out about me being a creationist?"

"Maybe like... 12-13 hours. Of course only the higher-ups knew about it back then and the others got to know about it like 5 hours ago?"

"Did anyone else here, knew about me before that?"

"Of course not."

"So it's been 13 hours at the maximum before people in here knew about me, and still those f*ckers appeared out of nowhere to get their hands on the weapons that I created and no matter how fast the news travels-"

"They had to be around the base to formulate a plan and act so soon!" Amanda linked the dots in her mind and looked at Arnold with disbelief.

"See? Was it too hard to deduce the result from the facts?" Arnold smirked.

"I see that you're a bit more intelligent than me but don't get so full of yourself." Amanda turned around to leave.

"Where are you going?" Arnold asked.

"To inform the higher-ups and form a task force to search and destroy the church once and for all!" Amanda exclaimed. Arnold could swear that her eyes were shining.

"You really are dense aren't you?" Arnold sighed and shook his head in disappointment.

"...what do you mean?" Amanda asked him, confused about his remark.

"I said, that we should assume the Church knew about me right after the 'higher-ups' got to know about me. Which means, maybe one of these higher-ups you keep talking about, is actually a member of the church."

"I... see, that might be the case. But we'll still need at least a hundred or so people to search the surrounding area and we can't do that without the permission of the higher-ups."

"Just leave that to me. Will you?"