TR:44

Chapter Forty-Four: Kabade’s Used Wares

Kuu couldn’t believe what she was seeing; after the sheer shamelessness of the open-and-shut legs of the Hot Fix, she didn’t think anything else on Tansis could flummox her as much. But the city delivered, and there in front of her was a veritable fortress of unrivalled security proportions–Kabade’s Used Wares.

In the guise of a long-retired flea market, the windows of the squat building were shuttered like eyes sealed off from the outside world. Whether it was to prevent from without or contain from within remained to be determined, but Kuu thought she knew the answer to that one. Yet, no bankrupt flea market this was; atop having Sec-Tech grade alloyed shutters on all of its orifices, a stone-and-mortar wall had been erected around its perimeter, buttressed on its interior with heaps of sandbags, overlooked by the clackity-clack of automated machinegun turrets as they audibly panned side to side on an ever-vigilant swivel. More, Kuu could make out several tinted glass hemispheres pock marking the concrete skirt delineating the second level, a dangerous glint of red breaking through the translucence if one looked carefully enough–a lidar-based detection system which Kuu’s scanners told her with approximately 89.25 % probability were linked to the dozen or so mechanical machinegun hounds beneath them. Suffice to say, the Kelejerene were living up to their name as tech titans.

Kuu swallowed nervously as she let her systems scan the area from the safety of her perch atop the adjacent building, several floors higher than her target. If there was any way safely in or out of Kabade’s, it had effortlessly escaped her para-visual scanners. Frustrated, she turned her attention away from the building itself and more to the surroundings. Kabade’s was set in a derelict neighborhood, a remnant of the last great depression and one among thousands of such slums that existed in the city. Yet, its being forgotten was explicitly what made it the perfect venue for a criminal safehouse; if no one lived there then no one was around to ask about it. And that meant the Authorities, as well. In fact, looking around the general vicinity at the two dozen once commercial buildings in her periphery, not a single soul stirred. It was as chilling as it was peaceful, for it was not the kind of silence one wanted to dwell on; there was something…implicit in it, like an unspoken threat. The only sound other than the turrets rotating on their rotors was the gentle whistle of the artificial breeze generated from the city’s MPU–Meteorological Processing Unit–as it whistled eerily through the abandoned streets below. Kuu bit her lip as she eyed the buildings, nothing out of the ordinary other than, of course, there being on one at all. She sighed and slumped back against the concrete lip preventing her fall several stories below.

She dug a hand into her dress and pulled out the drive Ezren had given her, along with the parting words, ‘you’ll know where this goes when you see it,’ which was in keeping with every other vague unhelpful piece of information he had given her about here mission. She ran a delicate finger along the acid-etched wiring on its surface, tracing it ever so slowly like it were a maze that needed solving.

A maze.

That was it! How had she missed it? She jumped to her feet and rested her chin against the concrete baluster, staring down into the streets with newfound eyes. Kabade’s was well guarded, yes; too well guarded, in fact. If Kuu’s sensors were to be believed, the detection system in place was indiscriminate, meaning it could not be slaved to another’s biometrics. This meant that literally no one was getting in and out of Kabade’s, including the Kelejerene. Which meant that, if there was truly something inside worth hiding, and the Kelejerene were holed up inside, there had to be another way in. Otherwise it was bullet holes the whole way down. So, then, how were they getting in?

Kuu surveyed the streets below but even her modern hardware couldn’t pick anything up out of the ordinary. Other than the furtive chugging of the turrets as they panned side to side lazily, and the occasional rogue gust of wind travelling between the buildings, everything else was silent. Until a small motion was detected in the periphery of her scanners: some small creature darting out from a crack in the pavement, only to disappear behind some canvas-draped cargoes across the way. One of the turrets homed in on the motion, a small laser flickering to the spot where the creature was microseconds prior, with deadly accurate precision. However, the creature was gone and the turret disengaged, though by the look of several small bloodied corpses scattered about the mezzanine in front of the building, drying in the afternoon sun, not all had been so lucky. Kuu zoomed in on one of the little furry effigies, her scanners generating a 97.6% probability that the creature was vinderia scallamosus–otherwise known as a ‘rail rat’ or just ‘dusters’, as the locals referred to them. Or, at least, it had been. Interestingly, Kuu wondered why the poor thing had been driven up to the surface. Typically, rail rats–as their name implied–lived underground near or around the underground tram lines in the city, where they could gain easy access to the exposed wiring of servomotors and the likes, upon which they feasted. Rail rats were one of several hybridized lifeforms on Tansis, genetically engineered with mechanical components to augment their biological status. In this case, the rodents’ internal metabolic systems had been replaced with one more similar to a electrochemical system seen in a battery, which was why they sought out constant charge to refuel their systems. However, as it had turned out, the creatures were too smart for their own good and had easily escaped their laboratory lives imposed upon them by their progenitors, moving out into the city proper where they multiplied rapidly and subsequently began to thrive. Reflecting on the small, dead animal made Kuu realize just how much they had in common, and she wondered if the animal–now more concrete than organism–couldn’t possibly be a metaphor for what she had in store. The thought of it made her grow dark and she quickly pushed it away before she began to spiral down one of her many dreary philosophical holes. Yet, more to the point, why was the rail rat at street level? Had it run out of food? Surely, there were transit lines in the area. Otherwise, where had it come from? As Kuu’s mind began to tick, she realized that she could pull up a civil schematic of the area, as this was in the public domain for any citizen to access. Tapping into her Link feed, she uploaded her internal GPS coordinate and relayed it to infrastructure domain in which she was perusing. After several seconds of registering the information, a holographic file hovered several feet in front of her in her HUD and began to sort through the files with small swipes of her hands until she came to a service/access folder. There, she pulled up different schematics for transit lines, and was surprised to see that, to the contrary, the nearest monorail line was over point-three kaldar away. On second thought, it made sense that the Kelejerene should choose this location, as it was off the beaten path as it were, and therefore much less likely to be in the public eye. Clearly, they were hiding something and this was a mutual benefit for both citizens and their own. However, it did nothing to explain where the rail rats were coming from. Kuu surmised a moment then meandered into a different file, pulling up main lines and sewers, only to discover that they too were tangential–not underneath–her current position. Why would anyone build a building with no hook-ups? It didn’t make any sense. Unless…the city did not build this building. Riding that train of thought, Kuu uploaded a visual snapshot of the structure in question and overlaid it onto the corresponding planning map as drafted by the Tansis Council of Development (TCD), only to discover that what should have been an unoccupied green space–a park of some sort–was anything but that. So the building not officially exist, at least not as of five years ago, according to the city’s plan. The only answer then was that, not only had the city not sanctioned this structure in question, it was not old at all. The only natural conclusion, then, was that someone–the Kelejerene, perhaps–had erected this structure and intentionally made it look derelict. Which wasn’t such a bad plan if one was looking to be unassuming. But there was still the matter of the rail rats…

”Okay, think Kuu, think Kuu. If there aren’t any main lines, rails or sewers, what else could be down there?”

As she pondered her own question, it finally came to her: what would a criminal organization need to distribute goods underground? Access tunnels. Which service lines would be perfect for. Kuu delved back into the TCD files and pulled up service line schematics. Sure enough, there were many in the area, although the closest line only approximated her location, about three leave away. But, for one who was motivated enough, drilling an adjoining tunnel for three leave was no tall order. While it was only a hunch, it was the best she had to go off of, and so Kuu decided to act. She pinged the nearest (official) access point to her HUD and made her way silently off the building, lest the turrets pick up her movement too and she join the unfortunate souls decorating the street in front of Kabade’s Used Wares.

***

Kade shifted his weight against the hard leather of the saddle, his rear had long expired from bouncing over the rocky terrain. The hooded man rode ahead of them on a stunning white mare, his black cloak draping down the sides of the horse in stark contrast against her ivory purity. He lead them by a lead line tied to one of his saddle bags, a knot so fierce in its composition that Kade almost felt empathy for it. Scrubby sat behind, clinging to Kade’s waist for dear life, mumbling to himself about how gnomes shouldn’t be riding horses. Leaving the city felt like leaving his life behind; aside from being veritably kidnapped, not only was he being led further from his home and his family, he was leaving the only link to Brian behind him, the trail going colder the further they went. There was also the fact that he never got to meet the mysterious kind lady who had allegedly helped he and his friend back in Symphonia, though he remembered little of it. He looked  ahead at the tall bobbing figure on the white horse with a multitude of mixed emotions, getting the distinct impression that the blue-haired man cared not for any of it, nor that Kade would be returning to the area anytime soon.

The road they/he chose went east out of the city, which seemed to be the way that many of the deserters were heading, at least for a time. At first, Kade had been startled to see so many on the road and couldn’t help but wonder what the commotion had been about. Judging by the uptick in air traffic leaving the local spaceport, and the backup of vehicles on the freeways back in the city, Kade guessed people had resorted to less-conventional means of travel as their only option out. When asked, the only piece of information their captor had offered was:

“Someone attempted to assassinate the prince.”

As if Kade should know what any of that means. Yet, after several hours of much the same, the exodus petered out to a stranding of a bleary-eyed families here and there, and Kade thought little more of it.  Of course, for better or worse, this meant there were less people to question them along the way which, considering the man had made it quite clear that no one was to recognize him, was a good thing for everyone. In the short time he had spent with the man already, Kade had already learned of his short temper, and decided that reticence was the best cure. Scrubby seemed to agree in his own way, staying silent and out of view as best he could.

They came upon a sign in the middle of the road, dividing the way into a fork, which was a welcome change to the monotony of the pass. To the left, Portory, the right the upper Sequala river and, beyond, wilderness for many, many kaldar. They took the right fork.

“Why aren’t we following them?” Kade asked, referring to the few remaining stragglers heading the other way.

The man didn’t acknowledge him as they continued on the river path. Kade exchanged nervous glances with Scrubby, the gnome’s eyes seeming fixed in a state of panic, as they had been since being captured in the garden.

Some time later, they arrived at a river delta and the man got off of his horse. Kade took this as a sign to mean that they could do the same and he let himself and the gnome down without argument. The man lead the mare out to the sandy banks where she dipped her head down to drink. Kade’s pony wandered away from them without any consideration to its rider and nestled up beside the other horse to drink, as if to say, ”I do what I want”.

Kade sighed and took a big stretch, reaching for the sky. It felt good to move after sitting so long in the saddle; he was more attuned to sitting on a couch than a horse, and his body reminded him of this fact. He bent over, his back making a satisfying crack. Scrubby stood rubbing his rear, mumbling to himself in frustration. Kade looked around them and saw that the river divided the forest on all sides of them as it continued to run northwest up into the mountains. On the other side of the bank a faded wooden sign with the word “Windhome” pointing west, “Battlefort” east and a sign too faded to read pointing north. Beyond the trail was vast, dense woodlands. The man removed his hood and walked over to them. His blue spikes of hair seemed to reflect light just as the river did, and Kade almost wondered if he were some kind of demigod in that moment; what with his glittering armour and headband inset with its own nebulous red stone, the man certainly looked like he were ready to go to war. He motioned across the river.

“We cross here. About a day’s travel, on the other side of Arbolom is our destination. About a leave from there is LoaLoa. We can rest there. Come on.”

Kade stared across the rushing river into the fabled woods.

Arbolom.

Growing up, he had heard many stories about the forest, its strange beasts that lurked in the shadows, a sacred meadow that harboured an ancient tree from the times of the first saplings… Some even said that the forest itself was alive; not the trees themselves–of course they were alive–but the forest as a whole, like one great entity. It was said that the forest was created, not grown as would naturally occur in nature, perhaps the product of a spell or a dream, conjured of a mind from a time long-lost. It was said that any who entered the forest never came out the same, if they even came out at all…

Up until his departure from Hollow, Kade had lived something of an insular life and had never been past the Shy mountains, bordering his town. As long as he could recall it had been one of his deepest desires to explore the world, chasing new adventures and legends of old. Now, looking out at the mist-riddled forest, white jenigan birds hovering above like ominous dust specks, the opening into the forest stared back at him like a challenging eye, and he no longer felt the same yearning for boyhood adventure. Kade wasn’t sure what the feeling was exactly, but somehow he felt as if he was looking forward into the future, looking out at himself from within the forest, as if in some kind of existential split. He recalled his encounter with the demonic horse on the beach, and the Roc on the cliff that had tried to devour them back at Falkner’s, and he knew something here, too, was off. It was as if that same pull towards a singular dark moment–a malevolent purpose, where he was a pivotal point in its realisation–emanated from within the woods, a pervasive force of potential wrongness. Despite his reservations, Kade knew that there was no turning back now;the  blue-haired man had already begun to wade across the stream with his stallion.

Kade helped Scrubby back onto the saddle before letting himself back on. Their captor had allowed their lead line to remain un-tethered, though Kade suspected this had less to do with trust than sheer apathy; there was likely very little they could do to escape, given what they now knew the man was capable of. Up to that point, their bonds had been ceremonial more than anything, hardly having served a purpose. Reluctantly, Kade urged the pony onward but the animal seemed to follow despite Kade’s instructions, once again confirming that he was not the master it obeyed. When the water came up to waist level, the two of them gasped as the cold water soaked through pants and boots. Kade’s testicles receded up into his body, demanding warmth. Kade had never seen a horse swim before but, apparently, they just knew what to do. When they reached the other side the pony shook the water off, Kade and Scrubby shielding their faces from the barrage of smelly horse water. The man sat atop his white stallion in the middle of the path leading into the forest with an impatient look on his face.

“Stop wasting time. Nightfall is only hours away, and I want to be through this wretched place before then. As will you, if you are ever unfortunate enough to be in it at that time.”

It was the most he had ever said to them, but it was more than enough. Kade glanced past him at the forest behind and shuddered. He looked back over his shoulder across the river one last time, back to the path were there many knowns. Ahead–where they were going–there were none. That opening into Arbolom may have been the door to hopelessness itself, for all he was concerned.

“Why do we always choose the path that leads into the horwarg’s den?” Scrubby whined, burying his face in Kade’s back.

Kade had no answer for the gnome. All he could think about was the kinds of horrors that existed within those woods that could frighten the blue-haired man. He swallowed and squeezed the pony’s flanks with his heels, urging it into a trot as they hurried to catch up with their captor who had already disappeared into the woods.

“Come on.” Kade said. “Better a horwarg than him.”

***

The hermetically sealed lid to the access tunnel twanged loudly as it struck the concrete down below. Kuu peeked her head through the jagged hole which she had cut, the metal around the edges still glowing hot. The torch flicked out as she switched off the multi-tool which was part of the arsenal that Dev had graciously supplied her with. She stared briefly at the thing before she pocketed it, glowering down the hole at the metal pancake which she had carved out.

“Espionage is not a subtle craft, it turns out.” She mumbled to herself.

Being careful not to singe herself, she let herself through the hole, landing about as graceful as a three-tuller cybrid could. The tunnels were crypt-like in their darkness, though Kuu’s sensors told her that the maintenance corridor was wired and active, if needed. But Kuu wasn’t looking for a light switch, no, she needed a door. Though, she suspected said door would likely be more of a metaphor in the case of access to the Kelejerene’s secret hideaway. She walked through the tunnel in darkness for a time, with only her sensors to guide her, the world alive in the electric hues of greens and greys imparted via her night vision mod. The tunnel was nondescript, nothing to write home about, and it certainly did not show any signs or hints at being a conduit for illicit dealings. Rather, the most nocuous thing Kuu came across was a pile of desiccated duster droppings that looked as abandoned as they were disgusting, suggesting that even the lower level creatures didn’t even use the place. Which got Kuu to thinking: perhaps this wasn’t the place she was looking for. As she continued to wander the seemingly hopeless corridors, her thoughts beginning to drift towards giving up on her current mission, she ran into a wall. Not metaphorically, that is–a literal wall. The corridor just stopped, something corridors didn’t usually do. Kuu looked around, her scanners flitting thousands of little figures in her HUD as the data poured into her sensors, none of it considerable in the least. Perhaps, the oddest thing about it–other than there being a dead-end out of nowhere–was that the wall was composed of a different material than the walls and ceiling leading up to it. Which is not to say that was a strange thing in itself, but it wasn’t typical of a building, unless…unless the wall was serving another purpose altogether.

Or it wasn’t a wall at all.

Kuu approached cautiously, leaning her ear near but not touching. Even with dialled up aural augmentation, her sensors picked up nothing on the other side. Whatever this wall was made of, it betrayed nothing on the other side. Ever so carefully, Kuu laid a small hand against the cold metal which had been air-brushed to look like the amalgam surrounding it, though her sensors told a much different story. As she slid her hand along its length, a very strange thing happened: a previously invisible panel slid aside, revealing a rectangular alcove inside which a nine button panel stared back at her. But this was old tech, nothing digital about it. The buttons were actual buttons–not displays–and there were no screens to be seen. This told Kuu that either the Kelejerene had some kind of strange affinity for ancient things, did not know how to use modern tech, or–most believably–they wanted their base to be hack-proof. The latter of which was disappointing to Kuu since hacking was something she understood. This meant that Kuu would need to be creative to bypass the security here.

Kuu leaned in, getting a closer look with enhanced optics. “Hmm, what do we have here? It appears you don’t get used much. There is much dust here. But, looking closer, I see four of the buttons–here, here, here and here–that have slightly less accumulation. Is it natural to assume you are part of the key?”

Kuu leaned back, frowning as she considered her options. “Well, if this is true–and the code is four digits long–that gives me ten thousand different possibilities to sift through, and I don’t think Ezren would be too fond of me taking that kind of time. And a power analysis is out of the question since I have no input. That means I need some kind of cipher to narrow it down. Hmm, if we assume the code is four digits long, and none of the numbers are repeated that definitely removes some, but not enough to narrow it down considerably…”

As Kuu’s thoughts trailed off into oblivion, staring blankly at the control panel, its three-dimensional analogue buttons jutting out at her defiantly, she suddenly realised she had been overthinking the whole thing. Her assumption was that, because there was no digital or holographic interface, that the system was un-hackable. But that also assumed the system did not run on power, and if there was any kind of mechanism that controlled a door or some such, then there had to be electricity. Which meant there had to be a power source nearby.

Kuu reached into her satchel and felt around until she came up with a small round object that fit into the palm of her hand. It was a round, metallic disk with a glass rim circumscribing its centre, in which sat a single diode. The device was known as a Variable Feeback Pulse Emitter, or simply a ‘pulser’ for short. Yet another generous gift from Dev’s workshop, it was a handheld EMP device which sent out increasingly large electromagnetic signals until it received feedback from an external system, upon which it reached threshold and did not increase power beyond that point. The point was to localise the disruption so external detection systems would not be triggered, and Kuu certainly did not want any extra attention at that point.

Kuu gently placed the device on the wall beside the panel, to which it snapped with a magnetic thud. She pressed the diode in the middle and the device flashed to life, alternating lights blinking red around the edges, showing that it was hard at work. The hope was that if she could disrupt the power supply to the door’s lock mechanism, the Kelejerene would have built in a fail-safe which caused the door to automatically open. Otherwise, logically, they would be locked in, in the event of an outage or some other disruption. Of course, it was entirely possible there was some other fail safe, but Kuu couldn’t imagine a secret base staying too secret if it had many points of egress. Plus, she had little else to go on.

After a long moment, the device went cold, hanging there in stark silence. Kuu couldn’t tell if it was the kind of pause one experienced before receiving bad news, or whether it was gathering its thoughts to provide an eloquent answer. Just as Kuu began to feel the low-level dread beginning to creep back in, there was a faint rumble behind the walls, followed by a series of clicking sounds, and the wall began to move, particles of dust and old amalgam sifting down from the exposed tracts above. Once the wall/door had receded from sight, Kuu found herself staring another wall, but it was perhaps the strangest one she had ever seen. This wall appeared to be made of cardboard, structured in blocks which nestled together in perfect formation, and they were limned with light, suggesting a source obscured. Curiously, Kuu placed a hand against the wall and pushed gently. The block shifted forward ever so slightly and Kuu’s hand recoiled as she gasped, not expecting the wall to move so easily. She took a moment to gather herself and tried again, this time pushing a little harder. The block moved inward more and more, until it fell forward out of sight. The blocks above tumbled down and off, collapsing to the other side in what could have been considered a muffled racket as part of the wall caved in on itself, a soft light attacking Kuu in the face as she ducked out of sight, her heart racing.

After a long moment of silence and no apparent repercussion, Kuu slowly raised her head above the punctured opening in the wall. Only she could now see that it was not really a wall at all but a heap of cardboard boxes that had been stacked against the interior of what appeared to be a storage facility. And not only was the wall not a wall but the light was hardly that–merely a single caged utility light which ran with the barest of power to keep the room partially alive, though barely at that; other than Kuu, there was no one in sight. As she gathered her wits, she carefully let herself up and over the boxes which remained, lowering herself to the floor on the other side, witnessing the mess she had made. The room was small, perhaps five hundred square blades at most, with nothing worth note other than a handful of shelves stacked with crates and boxes of the shadows of shapes which warranted no merit, and one small terminal in the corner, which was not of the sort which she could use for her mission. Two of the walls were made of glass which looked out onto a series of similarly dim-light corridors, which seemed to lead nowhere, and a single fire door which looked as it might give her some trouble, should she wish to pass through it.

But the door opened and, happily, no one was there to greet her. In fact, it wasn’t until some time later, sneaking through countless corridors which all seemed one and the same that she came across her first Kelejerene. Admittedly, if the man hadn’t been asleep at his post, he would have been intimidating; leaning against the corridor wall in dark military fatigues, dark skin, black assault rifle slung across his chest, he was practically a shadow himself. If he hadn’t been snoring loudly, Kuu may have missed him and tripped right over his boot, and the bullets that were sure to follow. Ever so quietly she passed him by, travelling down the one corridor until, eventually, she came to what must have been the main area of the base.

What once had been a warehouse–if ‘Kabade’s’ had ever really been that–had been retrofitted as a factory, conveyor belts on assembly lines that now stood vacant as the night began, Kelejerenes clearly not into graveyard shifts. And speaking of graveyards, the emergency lighting that shone down on the factory floor cast an ominous pall over the place, such that the many metallic objects on the belts–likely weapons parts, considering it was the Kelejerenes after all–looked more like the shadows of dismembered limbs, reaching out into the darkness. Kuu shivered as she hid behind a stack of wooden crates, strange symbols branded on their side that she had never seen before. Curious, she did a brief scan and checked them against Link databases but nothing registered. Never in her life had she had that happen–where the Link itself could not decipher data. It was like she was staring at a ghost, when someone told you they did not exist yet there it was, right in front of you.

But she was not there to hunt ghosts, nor was she there to procure illegal arms. Yet, her purpose for being there still remained unclear; Ezren had been about as oblique about her mission as possible, while still giving enough details to actually create a mission to begin with. All she knew was she was looking for a place to put the drive he had given her, though it didn’t appear the Kelejerene’s were the computing sort. Despite this, the claim was she would ‘know where it went’–it being the drive. Either Ezren had misplaced faith in Kuu’s abilities to know what couldn’t be known, or she was missing something entirely. So, as always, Kuu turned to logic, as logic was often the only friend one had in times of tribulation. And logic told her that if there were no terminals in her area, there had to be another location in the building where the Kelejerenes kept their data. Some kind of hub or control room, perhaps? Kuu poked her head out from behind the crate, letting her sensors flit across the room. It appeared that security inside Kabade’s was minimal, likely owing to the fact that the crime syndicate didn’t expect anyone to make it as far as she had. Or, maybe, they didn’t think anyone would be stupid enough to try. Regardless, aside from a handful of armed patrols on the floor and upper catwalks, there were no cameras or motion detectors that she could pick up, which meant she would only have to avoid people–something she was very good at.

As she logged the positions of the patrols on the upper levels, her sensors caught an interesting anomaly in the far corner of the upper levels: an access door leading to what appeared to be a restricted area. There were no guards there but, somehow, Kuu knew it was what she was looking for. There was nothing else in the factory, so whatever it was she was looking for, it had to be there, or it wasn’t anywhere to be found at all. She logged the position of the patrols using her retro-reflective mod, their movements appearing as glowing silhouettes contrasted against a backdrop of grey contours, as the algorithms sorted out their movements amongst all the noise of the surrounding numbers. Once they were marked, Kuu proceeded along the route which her scanners had calculated for her, the least probable path of contact, given the movement of the patrols. Sure enough, she navigated the floor with ease, making her way as quietly as possible up the metal treads of the staircase which led to the upper levels. At the top, Kuu’s programming instructed her to take cover behind a stack of crates covered in a canvas blanket, the same makings of those strange symbols peeking out from the edge of the sheet. Kuu had little time to think on it, and once the patrol had turned back to repeat their rounds, she dashed out from behind the crates, making her way to the other end of the ramp. At the access door, Kuu grabbed the handle, uttering a silent prayer that it was not locked. It wasn’t. As quietly as possible, she let herself through, closing it behind her with a barely audible click. As the door clicked shut, one of the patrols looked back over their shoulder, eyeing the door with apprehension. After several seconds of shrewd consideration, they shrugged it off, resuming their patrol.

Kuu’s heart quickened as she found herself in near complete blackness, save for a wall of distant pinpoint lights which blinked intermittently. It was if she had been cast back into the briefing room at the Hot Fix, where she had once been equally sure that Dev would be as likely to slit her throat in the darkness as she were to turn on the light.

Light.

Logic.

Friend. Logic, friend. Light, friend.

Kuu reached into her satchel and routed through the equipment that had been provided for her. Amongst the state-of-the-art advanced technology that she now possessed, fortunately, Dev had also had enough foresight to provide her with a flashlight. She clicked it on and the room came to life before her, inside of the narrow beam which the flashlight cast. She gasped as she panned the light across what must have been some kind of mainframe, CPUs and other machinery stacked twice as tall as her in an array around the room, and above that a wall of giant monitors which sat in sinister silence, like sleeping eyes of some great electronic beast. All around her the machines slept, as if awaiting command from some unseen hand or voice, and Kuu couldn’t have felt more out of place. The room itself felt out of place, as if someone had carved out this space separate from the rest, separate from the Kelejerene’s main operations. This wasn’t to say that the Kelejerenes weren’t our couldn’t use the technology here for their purposes, but something seemed off about it. Something seemed…

Other.

It was the only word she could come up with to describe it.

But Kuu knew she was likely on borrowed time, given a room of this capacity–one with so many latent screens and sensors–couldn’t be all that unaware, as it appeared to be. Which meant she needed to work quickly. She walked around the room, shining the light across the surfaces of the stations, various switches, buttons, displays and dials which meant nothing to her. Until, after what seemed like several laps around the room, she came to a rectangular slot which seemed to be just the right size. Kuu inserted the disk that Ezren had given her and the slot accepted it without prejudice.

A moment went by. Then two. Then ten, and then after what seemed like a thousand more, a small screen came to life above the terminal where she stood. Some numbers flitted by, at first nonsensical as they moved to quickly for her to register, but then it became obvious from the bits of chain code that she recognised that the disk was uploading an image of some sort. Curious, Kuu shone the light down at the panel, assessing the controls in more detail. After she had downloaded and overlaid a schematic from the Link for the terminal brand, she was able to punch in a command to show her a live stream of the data run through a GPU filter. On an adjacent screen, large red symbols began to be projected. Kuu recongized them as bearing similarities to the ones she had seen before on the crates, though she still couldn’t ascertain their meaning. She leaned toward the screen, trying to make out the different images which popped in and out of existence.

“What language is this, I wonder? Is it some kind of…cipher used by the gang?”

As she analysed it in more detail, suddenly the symbols began to appear on screens around the room, spreading out across all the monitors like a rapidly metastasising cancer until she was surrounded by them. The figures began to stream by rapidly, like a time-lapse video feed. Kuu turned to the room, her head spinning as the figures began to make her feel dizzy, a torrent of data bombarding her in every direction. And then a voice sounded, coming from nowhere and everywhere all at once, as if the room itself were speaking to her.

“And who do we have here? Are you doing something you shouldn’t be, little one? Do you even know what you are looking at?”

The screens went dark all at once. After a moment of darkness, silence, a mouth appeared on the largest of the monitors high above, before her. IT was no normal mouth, but one that seemed to be dismembered or separated from its host, pixelated and more static than image. It moved just out of sync with its words, as if running latent.

“No, I don’t think you do. But we will help you understand. So understand this: this is the spider’s web, and you are the fly. You have wandered into it of your own accord, and there is no escape now. Our web–our reach–is far: there is nowhere you can go that we too will not be. You can run, but know you run on roads that we have built, and we are at the end of every one. So submit now and, perhaps, we may not make an example of you.”

Kuu had never been so terrified in her life. She had no reply for such a threat, and her only instinct was to run. As she turned to leave, she remembered at the last moment that she had forgotten to retrieve Ezren’s disk. And, like it or not, if she returned without it, she would have more than one person hunting her down. She promptly ejected the disk and ran for the access door.

“WHERE DO YOU THINK YOU ARE GOING LITTLE FLY? YOU HAVE SOMETHING THAT BELONGS TO US! THERE IS NOWHERE YOU CAN GO THAT WE DO NOT HAVE EYES!”

The voice rang in her ears, even after she had left the room. At that point, with everything that had happened, Kuu was in such a daze that she hardly noticed the flashing red of the emergency lights and the warning calls of the alarm klaxons. It wasn’t until a stray round ricocheted off of the railing, tracing over her shoulder brought reality crashing down around her. Once again, Kuu found herself getting shot at, and she wondered how she had ever gotten herself in the position that she was in. But there was hardly any time for reflection, and Kuu found her legs moving her along without even her recognition of them, as if she were some kind of automaton. It was if the whole thing happened in third person and her consciousness were a ghost hovering ever-so near, watching herself as she desperately attempted to evade security. To her (their?) surprise, somehow, Kuu managed to dodge the patrols–scant as they were–who now viciously hunted her. She found herself leaping over the railing at the end of the catwalk, watching in that same disjointed manner as she sailed throw the flashing crimson around her, landing atop a not-so-soft collection of metal drums, which promptly tipped as she spilled over them. Though her landing was anything but graceful, luckily, the toppled barrel managed to fend off a volley of automatic ballistek round which would have otherwise torn through her like cheesecloth. Kuu wasted no time leaving the factory floor, heading down the nearest hall.

Whether it was by design or sheer luck, none of her pursuers greeted her in the hall, though she could hear them yelling after her not far behind. She sped down a series of snaking halls that all seemed to look alike, her sense of time beginning to distort into something unrecognizable altogether. It was like there was internal clock which ran far too quickly, sand sifting away through a gaping chasm of a hole, yet at the same time there was a layer beyond that which seemed immovable, frozen in place. Whatever this time sandwich was that she had found herself in, Kuu wanted none of it; all she wanted was out. And, as it happened, there wasn’t to be one; ahead of her, the halls converged in a dead end.

Kuu’s heart nearly stopped.

So, this was to be her end, then? It wasn’t what she had imagined for herself. Surely, a Cybrid didn’t often think about death as they didn’t need to; they were about as close to immortal as a vampire was. Yet, there she was, having an infinite life crisis, feeling as vulnerable and defeated as she ever had. All she could do was stare at the wall, then back over her shoulder, at the wall, and back over her shoulder; on, and on, and on like this, as if repeating the process would change anything. And then she began to twitch. The convulsions started in her legs, moving up her spine until they fanned out into her arms, her fingers crooking and cranking violently, as if she were some mad wizard attempting to cast a spell in vain. She was going into shock. At least, if her biometric feedback scanners were to be believed.

As her hand spasmed at her side, it happened around her satchel, which momentarily jarred Kuu out of her twitching fit. She looked down and saw that her hand had reached into the bag, though she didn’t remember doing it. She pulled it out and retrieved two round objects.

Flak grenades.

Kuu’s eyes became larger than the explosives in her palm, her heart a veritable machine gun in her chest. The voices grew near, and Kuu knew she had only once choice if she wanted to live that day: she would have to embrace violence.

Against every fiber of her being, Kuu pulled the pins on the grenades and threw one to each side of her: one back down the hall where the Kelejerene were approaching from, the other at the wall that denied her escape. She crouched down, covering her head with her small, childlike arms, and waited. And waited.

At some point, the explosions came, but she couldn’t tell when. All she knew was that when she looked up next, there were muffled shouts and screams, and she was surround with plaster dust and smoke on either side. As she peered through the haze, she could make out vague shapes, but none of them seemed to be human. She thought she could see rubble–the collapsed hall, perhaps–blocking the one side, but she could not be sure. Her next instinct was to run, of course, but the problem then became which way should she run? Both directions were occluded with smoke and she had lost her bearing in the hall. Running in the wrong direction now could mean she ran right into the enemy–and then sure death. But if she waited and did nothing, death was also certain. Trusting her intuition (and not without a helping hand from her sensors), Kuu ran to her right, through smoke and what became a gaping hole torn through the wall, finding herself in a new, blackened hall. Kuu immediately switched on her night vision and began running. As she ran, her systems wasted no time pinging her location against the grid and she learned, much to her relief, she was back in another maintenance tunnel. She thanked her lucky stars as she followed the manicured path her systems laid out in her HUD, until about several leave later, she came to a ladder. She took the ladder topside, coming out on some anonymous, derelict street, roughly six blocks from Kabade’s. As she stood alone on the street, Kuu looked frantically side-to-side, lost as to what she should do next.

Home.

It was the only word that she could fathom, and it was the only one that made sense in that moment. She turned to dash away but stopped several steps in, looking back to the displaced manhole cover from whence she had come. She ran back to it, bending over as she pushed it back into place with some strained effort, the metal clunking into place. Kuu nodded to herself then turn and ran down the nameless street, into the hazy Tantis dusk.