Wasteland Star

"Get down on your knees and put your hands on your head!"

"Don't look around!"

"Behave! Don't touch anything!"

Tu Ran, hit with three verbal blows right off the bat, crouched on the ground with her hands clasped behind her head.

Two people in what looked like police uniforms approached her, twisted her arms behind her back, and snapped iron cuffs around her wrists before hauling her to her feet and shoving her toward a police vehicle.

Over that short stretch, Tu Ran finally got a good look at her surroundings.

She was in what looked like a pedestrian street.

The commotion had drawn a crowd, and they gathered in a ring, staring at her—old and young alike, with children all holding an elder's hand. Their clothes were plain, devoid of any high-tech gadgets, and she spotted nothing resembling a Federation communicator.

Despite the crowd, Tu Ran noticed there wasn't a single young person here. There were barely any middle-aged folks either—just white-haired elders hunched at the waist, and kids who didn't even reach her waist in height.

Looking at the buildings around her, none rose above ten stories. They were all painted white, weathered by wind and sun, some with peeling, patchy walls that had never been repainted.

The shops lining either side of the street were half open and half shuttered, sealed with tape, forlorn and desolate.

As she was pushed toward the vehicle, Tu Ran glanced at the shop signs.

Grain Exchange, Meat Exchange, Mental Energy Outlet...

*Click.*

The iron cuffs on her wrists were locked to the inner wall of the police vehicle.

She sat in the middle with her back against the side of the compartment. Two uniformed officers sat across from her, one on each side, and another drove up front.

Tu Ran figured these people were the so-called capture team, tasked with keeping order in this city.

Her gaze settled on the weapons carried by the two officers opposite her—standard-issue pistols, one each, with a collapsible stun baton hanging from their belts. Nothing else.

She then checked their communication gear: ordinary bone-conduction headsets.

The police vehicle she was riding in had a loud engine hum and rattled harshly, and she couldn't tell if the road was rough or the car was just a piece of junk.

Peering through the small window of the vehicle, she could see greenery along the roadside—uneven and scraggly—with the occasional large tree, though they looked sickly and undernourished.

Her first impression was that this world wasn't very developed.

It might even be more backward than the First World, but since she couldn't be sure what level this city ranked at in this world, she held off on jumping to conclusions.

Her second impression was oppression.

Deep oppression.

Everyone here felt weighed down. Their faces carried no extra expression, including the kids she'd seen earlier—they just blinked their hollow, wide eyes at her. She was dressed in clothes completely out of place in this world, and any kid from another world, even one from the lowest rungs of the Second World, would have been curious, would have stared, leaned in for a closer look, or burst into tears.

The atmosphere here was oppressive too.

Those shop names were still fresh in her mind.

The unfamiliar words muttered by the crowd still echoed in her ears.

Beast horde, deserter, Mental Energy Outlet...

This wasn't the First World of the 1980s.

This world had wars, and the enemy was the beast horde—a force powerful enough to have once invaded this world. Men and women of fighting age had all gone to the front lines, leaving only the elderly and children behind. Mental Energy was some kind of system in this world, and as for what it was specifically used for, Tu Ran couldn't guess yet.

Tu Ran kept wanting to touch someone to read their memories—that would let her understand the workings of this world faster. Too bad the capture team had arrived too quickly.

Before she could use her ability, the iron cuffs had grabbed fate by the throat.

Since she'd just arrived in this world, she shouldn't stir up too much trouble. For now, she'd take it one step at a time.

The police vehicle stopped in front of a building that looked old and weathered. Tu Ran was escorted out, and she craned her neck to find the building's sign. She spotted a small brownish-red iron plaque, unpainted—the color of oxidized iron—with yellow lettering reading "Capture Team" on it, and below that, a smaller line: "Detachment 999 District." Both lines were neat and tidy.

Tu Ran was taken into an interrogation room. Her helmet had already been confiscated, along with the dagger she'd carried. She was glad she'd stashed the laser gun back into her space before jumping into the pit; otherwise, even that would have been lost by now.

Sitting at the interrogation table was a slightly older capture officer.

As soon as he entered the room, he took off his cap, revealing a head of salt-and-pepper crew cut, and lit a cigarette.

"Name?" he asked, blowing out a cloud of smoke.

"Tu Ran."

"No such name in this place. Where are you from?"

"I have a stomachache."

"? Don't get smart with me. Answer my question, or you're not going anywhere."

Tu Ran: "..."

What had she done wrong? She just wanted to touch someone.

"Uh... I'm from the east."

"The east?"

The officer stared at her, his brows furrowing so hard they nearly formed a knot. He even forgot to smoke. After a long pause, he forced out a question, "Never went to school?"

Tu Ran was baffled. What did the east have to do with going to school?

Seeing the look on her face, the officer confirmed his suspicion: Tu Ran had never been educated.

He moved the mouse on his left and did something on the computer, then swiveled the screen around to face Tu Ran.

On the screen was a picture: six planets, one in the center with five distributed evenly around it.

The officer took a deep drag of his cigarette, and smoke poured out of his mouth as he spoke. "Point. Which one?"

Tu Ran suddenly understood. This world had already expanded into outer space!

When the officer had said earlier that "No such name in this place," he meant she had no name registered on this planet, and he was asking which of the other five planets she came from.

Her answer of "east," from a space perspective, was no different from being uneducated.

Tu Ran pointed to the gray, drab planet in the upper-left corner. "That one."

The officer took an even deeper breath, as if trying to suck back all the smoke he'd exhaled, and his brow furrowed even deeper.

Tu Ran had a hunch she'd just given some kind of earth-shattering answer.

"Wasteland Star..."

The officer muttered the planet's name to himself, then paused for a long time.

Those nearly three minutes of silence made Tu Ran's heart race with panic.

She'd already prepared for the worst.

"Not easy."

Tu Ran: "? What?"

"I said, it's not easy for you to escape from Wasteland Star."

He stubbed out his cigarette, stood up, walked over to Tu Ran, and grabbed her hand, his eyes actually welling up with tears. He repeated, "Not easy. Consider yourself lucky—lucky you made it to our Main Planet."

The moment he clasped her hand, a flood of images surged into Tu Ran's mind.