Chapter 24
Apate 3
"Why is it that Oz kits always smell funny? It's like...I donno, you mixed an abandoned locker room and a robot's burp." Gaige said, wrinkling her nose.
They were making their way across the surface of Apate 3, which contrary to expectation, did in fact have some vegetation, tall stringy things that looked like seaweed made out of coral. Well, at least they thought it was vegetation, they weren't going to stop and investigate.
The plant-like things waved when touched, the segments sliding around each other making them wonder if there was something inside or if it was just built with a strange ball-joint-like structure.
They were making good time, despite being loaded down with extra oxygen tanks, since all Oz kits seemed to leak or something, because they used up their air rather quickly. They just hoped that once they reached the factory that it would have atmosphere.
Cautiously picking their way across the rocky landscape, Gaige noted that most of the rocks they were walking on were actually the coral-like remnants of the plants, their light bluish coloring had faded to almost pure grey, making her mistake it for regular space rocks. She worried about how much it crunched underfoot, despite the lowered gravity, but without anyone around to hear it, she wasn't all that worried.
It didn't take long for the factory to come into sight through the waving plant-like stalks. It was quite a bit different from the last one. It was considerably bigger, though the main building itself was about the same height, but with a large number of additional buildings connected to it by sealed walkways, which when Gaige thought about it made sense, since the workers needed somewhere to live, but it seemed to be enormous.
It wasn't just the size that was different, the buildings had a slightly rounded look to them, like they were almost domes on the top floor, but not. There were thick vents and pipes running around the outside of them, giving it the look of an abstract technological stump covered in vines.
"What do you think they did here?" Artemis said, crouching down and observing the place.
"Worked on the bots." Came the exasperated reply.
"Yeah, I get that, but what did they do to them? I mean, why would you build in a lowered gravity? Was there some reason, or was it just that no one would look here?"
"Hmm, good question. I know they do things in lower grav to facilitate the transportation of heavier parts, not to mention some research is done that way cause it can affect the outcome, but as for these bots, I've got no idea."
"You think it's got anything to do with the EMP tech? Is that why they sent the bots here?"
"Most likely, I mean, why else would they?"
"Maybe it was one of the more off the books places and they figured the authorities hadn't found it yet."
"That also makes sense."
"Speaking of authorities, do you think there's any chance that they might catch us breaking into one of these places?"
"I wouldn't put it past Holloway to try that, but no, I think he wants to take us out himself, so he wouldn't resort to using anyone else this time."
"Oh, good."
"Why? You see something?"
"No, I just didn't wanna get arrested. Nor did I wanna fight the authorities and become wanted."
"Yeah, it sucks. Well, our Oxygen isn't gonna last forever, so we need to get going. On that note, see anything?"
"No, not even a bot."
"That's a bit unsettling, but let's go."
With a bit of reluctance, they set off, heading for the side gate, Deathtrap once again floating invisibly behind them. He was also unsettled at the seeming lack of life around here. It shouldn't have been that long since the bots were worked on, but it seemed like everyone finished up and left immediately, which made him wonder if anything they found would be useful. He already assumed the entire place would be a trap, his only question was what kind.
Trying to make as little noise as they could, they dashed out of cover and over to the door. Fully aware that they would be on camera, they had their hoods up and were wearing different outfits than normal in an attempt to ensure that any footage of them couldn't just be handed over to the authorities.
Gaige crouched down and got to work on opening the door, feeling the strange outfit tug on her in an unfamiliar way. It wasn't an ugly outfit, but the full pants weren't something she was used to. On the other hand, she found Artemis's new look to be quite amusing, though she'd restrained herself from laughing at her expense. She was wearing a pair of shorts much like what Gaige usually wore, over a pair of leggings that did a bit to hide her cybernetic leg. On top she was wearing a hooded long sleeve shirt over her usual chest-guard and shirt. Something about it made her look like a brooding teen. She'd even switched out her usual gear for an assault rifle and shotgun on her back, which she'd grumbled about no end before they'd left. In fact, about the only thing she had that was normal was the equine hanging from her belt, though she'd replaced her usual Shadowstar with Nix, pony of the night.
The door beeped and slid open, telling them that the place wasn't locked down too tight and that it still had power.
Stepping in, they felt the Oz bubble pop and the tanks begin to automatically refill, which was a relief.
"Right, I know it's, um, futile, but I'm gonna ask anyway." Artemis whispered, looking around "But which way?"
"You're right, it is futile." Gaige grumbled from behind the mask she was wearing, which was similar to the one that Artemis had worn into the sewers on the Project Odysseus station. "But since neither of us knows, let's head inward, see if we can find anything that might give us a sense of where things are."
They proceeded forward, finding the place felt completely different from the last factory, if anything, it felt more like the inside of a ship crossed with an office building. Sleek halls, unadorned by anything but the necessary signs that mostly consisted of numbers and arrows, reminding them both of the Project Odysseus base in their lack of usefulness. Periodically there were sliding doors set into the wall, but opening them only led to things like a med-bay or a break-room.
They had yet to find anything remotely useful, but they were only in the first hall, not far from the door and they knew that the building they were in was a ways away from the factory itself. Still, they hadn't seen nor heard anything yet, which was a bit unnervingly.
They continued down the hall till they came to an intersection with three nearly identical paths leading out. They knew that the way they'd just come from wasn't the way to go, and they felt that continuing along the outer wall wasn't going to lead them anywhere, so they headed inward, figuring that if there was anything to be found, it would be in the interior of the place.
Still, the rooms on the sides didn't yield anything of use. The rooms quickly turned into a few offices and workrooms, with drafting tables and computers. Gaige was tempted to search around, but they both knew that the computers wouldn't be connected to the system that would have any data that would be useful to them, for that they'd probably need to find the boss's office.
After the third such room, they were getting a bit frustrated with the sameness of everything, so Artemis offered an idea.
"Maybe there's a map or something on one of the systems?"
"More likely there's a trap on it. It's probably set up so that if we boot up any computer, all the bots here will activate."
"But I haven't seen any bots yet." Artemis countered, looking around nervously.
"Yeah, but they're out there, I'm sure of it. Besides, we've only looked in a few rooms, let's keep moving."
"Rare for you to be optimistic."
"I'm always optimistic, especially when I'm covering how nervous I am." She said with a tense smile, trying to put the other girl at ease. She wasn't sure if it worked, but she did nod and smile a little, though neither of them could really see the other's face behind their masks.
"Alright, we'll keep going." Artemis said, looking down the hall "But it would be nice if we knew if we were even in the right building."
Gaige sighed, the thought had already occurred to her, they had no way of knowing where they were supposed to be looking and barely any idea of what they were looking for, so this could take days if they weren't lucky. Still, there was nothing to do but press on and hope they didn't wake anything up.
Eventually they made it to the end of the corridors, straight ahead of them was a walkway that led to the central building of the compound, a massive blob that squatted in the middle of the area. It looked like two or three other buildings had melted together and had all been designed by someone with a crustacean fascination. It lacked the towers of the one on Burgloth, not to mention the squareness, which led them to wonder if each site had been designed by a different person or if they'd been build the way they were for some specific reason, either way, the lack of corporate unity was a bit off-putting after their dealings with Hyperion.
They looked at each other and wished the walkway was positioned better, because they couldn't get a good look at the back of the compound and neither of them thought that the information they were after would be found in the factory.
Still, they had to make a choice between going forward, or continuing to search the building they were in. While the building they were in felt like it was more for engineering, they didn't think that it felt like the kind of place the boss would be, so they sighed and pressed forward, determined not to touch anything in the factory.
The walkway system was larger than they'd thought, with a blast door on either end of each section, which worried them, not just cause they couldn't figure out what had been happening at the place to need something like that, but the thought of it dropping and trapping them was very real. They were all sure that if the alarm got raised, the doors sealing would be the first thing to happen, and since they lacked any real means of cutting though, they wanted to avoid that possibility if they could.
Eying the door as they went past, they found themselves in the factory proper, though it was a far cry from the lines at the previous one. The main factory itself seemed to be dedicated to manufacturing a specific model, though they couldn't figure out which one it was since it seemed that unlike the other factory, this one had taken the time to clean up after themselves, although they figured it could've also been the group that came later to work on the attack bots.
Padding through the room, they kept expecting to see bots popping around the corner, or dropping from the ceiling, but nothing happened. Lights on the machines stayed dark, steam didn't vent suddenly, nothing. In fact, the place seemed as dead as it initially looked, which bothered them. If this was a trap, then where was the trap? If it wasn't, then was this really a dead-end?
Not wanting to climb up unless they had to, they made their way around the factory floor, occasionally spotting something left behind, a fork truck parked in its space, a stack of unused pallets near one end of the machinery, sweepings piled up in the corners, but nothing that would be useful.
Neither one of them wanted to speak, it felt like any noise would break some kind of spell and set something awful into motion, though they were all tempted to do that, just because it would at least give them something to do, something they knew they could work on.
But they also knew that it would likely end up in disaster, not just because they didn't have any idea about what kind of bots were here, but if something went wrong, say there were EMP equipped bots, then they might fry the very thing they were there looking for.
Plus wasting their time in a fight where they might get hurt was just plain stupid. So, they moved on silently.
As they went around the room, they found things that they marked on their ECHOs, ladders and stairs leading up, shuttered doors in the walls, but nothing that was screamed that it was what they were looking for, so when they finally found another door leading out, they collectively suppressed their sighs and all but dashed through it.
The walkway ended in a small room with more hallways leading out, but something about it screamed 'residential' to them. Looking around to try and make sure there weren't any cameras in the area, Artemis was about to speak when Gaige held up a hand and led them a little ways down one of the halls, seemingly chosen at random.
Once they'd gone a little ways she opened a door and after giving the interior a quick once over led them in. Inside they found a bed against one wall, a dresser and a desk.
Only after they were secured inside the small room did Gaige speak up.
"Alright, we should be good here."
"What was that all about?"
"Can't be too careful about being watched."
"That's why we're in disguise, remember?"
"Yeah, but they might be able to plan something if they're observing us."
"Who's this 'they'? And why're you being so paranoid?"
"I'm not being paranoid, I'm being prudent, which is what you usually advocate for, isn't it? And second, this place is givin me a serious case of the cobbly-wobbles, so you'll have to excuse me if I don't wanna be observed."
"Oh, I totally get that part, so what's up?"
"What's...You were the one about to say something out there."
"Huh? Oh yeah, I was just gonna say how glad I was to get outta the factory is all."
"Seriously? That's it?" Gaige slumped slightly "Well, it's not like I can blame you, that place was givin off major strangeness."
"Yeah, it was like I kept expecting something to happen, but it never did."
"Almost makes you long for a good old bandit camp, at least there you know who and where the enemy is, plus there's something to shoot."
"You know that makes you sound a bit psycho, right?"
"Considering some of the stuff I've caught you doing, I don't think you've got any right to talk. But, yeah, I get it, it does sound a bit bad to say I wish I was killing people, but I just hate this stress without any means of release, alright? Makes me want a drink or something to take my mind off of it."
"Ah, well, I suppose it's a good thing we don't have anything besides water then."
"Well, we do have root beer, but that would require Deathtrap to reveal himself."
"Actually, we don't have root beer, remember."
"Ah, that's right, damn." Gaige cursed as she remembered that they'd taken the dispenser out of him to make room for other necessities, something she was regretting a bit at the moment.
They fell into silence for a second, then Artemis asked "So...now what?"
"Ugh, this again?"
"Well, you didn't answer, so I was wondering if you had a plan."
"My plan was to keep delaying you until I could come up with something, but that didn't pan out, so now I guess I'll just have to wing it."
"So, the usual?"
"Bitch."
Artemis shrugged and looked around the room. Like her first impression, it was sparse, but she still went over to the desk and opened the drawers up.
"What are you doing?" Gaige asked.
"Checking something."
"Checking what?"
"Well, I just wanted to see if there was anything left, you know how the last place looked like everyone had just up and left in the middle of what they were doing? I wanted to see if this place was the same or if they'd been given time to get their things."
"And if they hadn't, see what they'd left behind? Not bad, so what'd you find?"
"Nothing so far, but this room might not have been in use."
"Or the person here might have been able to pack."
"Right, I figured this was something I could do while you thought of a better plan."
"Makes sense, but don't get too excited, I doubt that the top dog would've been in this place."
"The compound?"
"What? No silly, this building. In fact, I bet none of the higher-ups were living here. Still, it doesn't hurt to look."
Artemis shrugged "So should I continue? Like check another room or something or should we move on, try and find where the boss worked or at least lived?"
"Why don't we check a few more rooms, see what we find. We can do that while we search for another exit to this place, by which I mean building."
Artemis nodded and they left the room. Looking around neither of them had any idea of which way to go, so they went back to the first room and headed in the direction that was away from the first building they'd been in.
Checking rooms periodically, they found that some of them had been cleaned out, but others were still almost entirely intact, speaking of the kind of person that had lived there. Some were so messy that they were reluctant to enter out of fear of what they'd step in, while others were so clean and neat that their first impression was that the room was unoccupied. Still, they checked each one as best they could, but other than a few personal effects, they found nothing, especially not anything that would help them find what they were looking for.
Eventually they did find an ECHO-log in one of the rooms. It wasn't the first ECHO they'd found, but most of them had been movies and most of those had been of a variety that Gaige hadn't wanted Artemis to see, though she did take one of the regular movies.
They popped the log into their player without much hope and hit play. A man's voice came one, talking in a lowered tone.
Dracy stared at the corpse in front of him, cooling in a pool of blood.
No, wait, cooling in a pool of its own blood, yeah, that's better.
Dracy stared at the corpse cooling in a pool of its own blood, the bullet holes still smoking in its back. He'd been too late, Yanik was dead and so was his leads.
No, wait, Yanik was dead, as dead as his career had been, and with him, so was the lead.
Dracy gingerly stepped to the window, looking out to see if the killer was still there, but only the night wind greeted him, carrying with it the smell of the ocean, rotting fish and salt, a smell he was all too familiar with. He turned back, but something caught his eye, hooked on the window frame was a single strand of hair, long and blond, floating like an angel's kiss. He knew that hair, the last time he'd seen it, it had been attached to the head of Mrs. Rachel Bradly, the dame who'd hired him. He'd know that hair anywhere, the way it splayed out across the pillow, the way it twined around her fingers as she played with it.
Wait, switch those two, end with the pillow, yeah that's better.
Now, where was I? Oh yeah, the way it splayed across her pillow in the morning sun. No. The way the neon lit it from through the window. No, hmm.
Alert Alert All employees immediately report to the central area. Repeat, all employees immediately report to the central area. That is all.
Aw come on, I was just getting into it, damn corporation, I'll just have to pick this up when I get back.
The ECHO clicked off, leaving the two girls looking at it.
"So, uh, what was that about?" Artemis asked.
"I think he was trying to write a book or something."
"Oh, well, at least we know that they were called for some kind of meeting, probably when they got told they'd have to leave."
"Maybe, I mean, this could've been another thing, we don't really have a date on this, do we?"
"I suppose not, but do you really think so?"
"Nope. Just throwing it out there is all."
"Right, so let's get outta here, unless you wanna find the rest of the story in there." She indicated the mess in the room.
"Nah, not really interested in a story without an end. Let's go."
They headed back into the hall and kept going, eventually finding another walkway that seemed to lead to yet another walkway, T-ing into a small building in the middle of the walkway. Looking both ways they found that they were entering into a maze of interconnected passages and small buildings. To their left was a small two-story building sitting a little ways off of the factory itself, to their right was another small building that seemed to be more of a hub for the walkways then anything. Past it they could see a largish building, smaller than the factory, it was long and rather short.
"Think that might be where we're looking for?" Artemis asked softly.
"Does that look like the kind of place where the boss would make their office?" Gaige snipped back.
"No, but it does look like the kind of place that they'd modify the bots."
"Oh, yeah, it does, doesn't it."
"So, do you think we should go look?"
"Yeah, but they might've left bots in there, so we should find the main offices first."
"But the computer's probably booby-trapped, just like the last one."
"Hmm, well, let's go try and find the main offices and then make our decision."
Artemis shrugged and looked around through the walkway "See anything that looks promising?"
"Maybe, but I can't get a good look at it from here. Wait, I thought you were the one who was supposed to have the good vision."
"I do, but you know what you're lookin for."
"Ah, yes, it's a burden that I have to bear."
Artemis just shook her head.
"Fine, this way." Gaige said in a pretend huff, turning and leading them down the hall towards the hub.
They resumed walking in silence and soon entered the small building.
The first thing Artemis noted was the colored lines running around the floor, she hadn't noticed them in the walkway, or rather, she hadn't paid attention to them, but now she could clearly see that they were supposed to help the employees find their way from one site to another. As they converged, there was a small angled gap, like an arrow pointing in one direction, no doubt to help lead the way. Wracking her brains, she figured out that the dark blue line was for housing and that the bright yellow one was probably for the factory.
Looking away from them, she found the rest of the room was far less interesting, the four walkways led out of evenly spaced doorways, each of which could be sealed in case of an emergency. They probably had been designed that way in case of an air leak, but they served as a means of trapping intruders as well. The light came down from strips that had been set into the ceiling as well as the edges of the floor, bathing the area in an unflattering glow. There were no decorations and the only other things of note were a vending machine in one space between the doors and directly opposite it was a bright orange box with the universal image of a communicator on it.
"This way." Gaige whispered, turning to the left and leading them further out.
Artemis watched the colors on the floor as they left, wondering which one would actually lead them to the boss's office, as well as noting that when they returned, they'd want the light blue line.
They went through two more nearly identical hubs before they turned down another passage and towards a three-story building. Even though it wasn't all that tall, it still gave off the unmistakable impression of being important.
"You think they'd hide which building the boss was in." She muttered.
"Why's that?"
"In case someone wanted to attack the place."
"Well, they'd have a hard time of it. I mean, if anybody tried to break the air-dome, all of the defenses would activate." She pointed to a strange bulb on the top of the nearest building. Artemis had noticed them as they'd approached, but had just figured they were part of the air system. Now that it had been pointed out, or maybe it was the new angle, but she could see the parts that would open up, as well as the power lines that fed them.
"Ah, I suppose so, but what if they didn't bust in that way?"
"They'd have to go in through one of the doors, right? And then they'd have to wade through all of the workers and the bots that would've been here. So, if they could get through all of that, then the boss might as well paint a target on themselves and get it over with."
Artemis nodded and they turned the final corner to find something they hadn't encountered since they'd entered the place, a locked door.
