Chapter 27
Apate 3
Artemis
The airlock cycle clicked and the inner door light turned to green. She reached for the handle cautiously, still afraid of the trap that hadn't yet been sprung, but the door hissed slightly and swung open without any difficulty.
Peering around the door, she found herself in an area that if she had to describe, would be maintenance, though it wasn't like the rooms she was used to. There were pipes, sure and machines, but they were clean and tucked against one wall. The rest of the room was taken up by consuls that she couldn't even guess the purpose of.
They were covered in switches and dial, the lines on the screens rose and dropped periodically to a rhythm that she couldn't figure out. She knew that Gaige could've given them one glance and told her what they were for, but without an in-depth investigation, there was no way she could even begin to guess, which once again told her that she was the wrong person for this job.
Still, she was too far along to turn back now, besides, Gaige was counting on her to do this.
Taking a slow, deep breath, she calmed herself and moved forward with renewed purpose. She made her way across the room and up to the door, wishing she had some kind of ID card or at least something to open the doors other than another round of hacking, but to her surprise, the door slid open with barely a sound the instant she tapped the panel.
She found herself suddenly feeling woefully out of place. If she'd been thinking up till then that she was the wrong person for the job, now she was sure of it as her boots sunk into the plush carpet.
The walls leading each way were some kind of dark metal or plastic, but it didn't look industrial. Completely the opposite actually, the walls screamed class. As she looked closer, she could see flecks of green and gold in them, which complimented the patterned carpet.
The hall was lit with brass trimmed fixtures set against the ceiling, as well as occasional glowing lines that ran from floor to ceiling, allowing her to see clearly.
Inlaid in the wall were doors of a polished black, with gold and hardwood inserts and periodically along the wall were small indents and alcoves where vases and pictures were placed.
The entire effect was so foreign that she wondered if she'd stepped through another portal and wound up somewhere completely different. The level of opulence was so out of place that she wondered why they'd brought all this junk to this moon in the middle of nowhere, it made no sense to her. Why waste all these supplies like this? Why not use them somewhere where people could actually see them, like your headquarters? Or better yet, why not use the money spent on this to improve other areas of the facility? Wouldn't that make more sense?
She figured if she asked Gaige, she'd have an answer, but for right now, Artemis was forced to just shake her head in disgust and proceed on.
She guessed that the head honcho would be on the top floor, which always seemed to be the case, though she couldn't figure out why. It seemed silly to have to take an elevator ride up each time you wanted to go to your office, not to mention it was inconvenient for everyone else. She supposed that might have something to do with it, by making it inconvenient to visit, you cut down on the number of people who'd harass you needlessly, but with all the means of communication that the business had, she couldn't imagine it would work all that well. The only other thing she could think of was that they must have liked looking down on the little folks, which considering the way these offices looked, didn't seem to be that much of a stretch. It was no wonder they'd locked this place up, if she'd been a worker here, she would've wanted to smash some of this stuff too. Not that she could ever imagine herself working in a place like this, not as an actual worker, nor as one of the office staff and certainly not as the boss, she didn't like people enough to spend any more time with them then she had to, not to mention she didn't have the skills. Even Gaige, who was both more skilled at this stuff and dealing with people had quit this kind of work after one day, so Artemis doubted she'd last ten minutes.
Putting such useless thoughts aside, she headed towards where the doors out had been sealed.
She was tempted to open up one of the doors she went past, if for no other reason than to see what an office was like in this place, but she didn't want to keep Gaige waiting for longer than she had to, so she passed. It wasn't like she'd find anything of use in there anyway, at least not to her. There was a chance she could find something, like an exotic letter opener or a solid gold paper weight, but there was also the chance that she'd set off an alarm, so she kept going.
She figured Gaige would've checked out at least one of the rooms, but she could've gotten the door open without any real difficulty, unlike Artemis who would've needed either a fair amount of time or to just break the thing down.
It wasn't long before she made it to the main lobby, which reminded her more of Moxxi's casino than anything. The receptionist's desk was a long wood affair that looked solid enough to be used for cover in a firefight. To each side of it, long curved stairs went up to the second floor, their balustrade were ornate, with curved golden wood balusters supporting the dark banister. The rich carpet continued up the stairs, with the hard dark material that made up the walls peeking out from underneath.
The metal door that would've led to the walkway was covered with another set of wooden doors, hiding it from sight, which gave the entire place an even more unreal feeling. Artemis had to keep reminding herself that she was still in the factory and not sneaking through some abandoned hotel.
She glanced around, making sure that there wasn't anything waiting for her and spotted the cameras hidden in the corners, some watching the doors, others the receptionist desk, but it was the first thing there that seemed to indicate that she was still on Apate.
Taking the moment, she walked around the desk, checking to make sure there wasn't anything of use there, like a set of keys, but other than some gold-plated pens, she didn't find anything.
Walking back around she made her way past the nearest elevator, with its gold trim and wood doors and up the stairs.
The feel of the carpet continued to be unreal, she wished she could find out where it had come from, she'd have loved to get some for her ship, the thought of padding around barefoot on it was extremely alluring, but she just had to file that away under wishful thinking, there wasn't any chance of finding that out, let alone affording it, she suspected.
She made it to the top of the stairs and started down the hall when she came to a set of wooden doors and behind them, she found the first real problem since she'd entered, a massive metal door that was so out of place, it made her wonder if she was dreaming.
She stood staring at it for a few seconds, trying to process what she was seeing, but in the end, she had to concede that it was, in fact, there. To make matters worse, there was no control panel to it, nor was there anything else to indicate a way around, forcing her to go back.
She ran through her options, she could go back down to the first floor and either search for another way up, such as a back staircase, she could try the elevator and if it wasn't working, try and climb the shaft or she could try the vents.
She decided to hold off on the last one as a last resort, after the last time she'd had to climb through vents, she didn't want to repeat it any time soon, though she had a sinking suspicion that she'd end up having to do it anyway.
Trying to put her mind at ease, she reminded herself that she had two other options to try before she'd be forced to go with that, so she should get working on them first.
Heading back down, she eyed the elevator, trying to decide whether to go with that first or second, but decided that since she was already there, she might as well try it, so she hit the button.
She stood there for a few seconds, then hit it again, but still nothing happened. She let out a sigh as she realized that if the place was in lockdown, the elevator would've been shut off as well, so she reached back to her pack to grab her crowbar, only to remember it was back on the ship. In her effort to not be recognized, she'd left most of her gear behind, that included her crowbar, though now she couldn't figure out why. It wasn't like she was the only person that carried one, was she? Especially not when she was raiding a secret base like this. It would've only been natural for her to have one, but here she was, without it.
She examined the door, trying to find the maintenance override. She figured it had to have something in case of a power failure, but since she didn't know where it would be, she couldn't tell if this one actually had one or not, so she was forced to give up.
Her next attempt was to force it open, putting all her weight against it. That worked just enough for her to see that the other side of the elevator had been sealed with another blast door, meaning that she wasn't getting up that way.
Letting the door slide shut, she paused to catch her breath and reassess the situation. She wasn't in a good spot. If the second floor was that sealed off, there was a good chance that even if there was a second staircase, it would be sealed as well. Not that she wasn't going to check, but it meant that as she went, she'd definitely need to look for some kind of a maintenance access to the air system and just hope that any group that was paranoid enough to seal off the elevator, wouldn't put similar things in the vents. If they were, she didn't know how she'd get through.
Trying to stop that line of thought, even as she reminded herself to plan for all eventualities, she headed around to the last hallway and proceeded down.
This time she gave more attention to the doors, noting that they didn't have any names next to them, instead they had a code inlayed into them that she realized were numbers. It was a subtle touch, one she reluctantly admitted gave the place an air of class, but one that also made it difficult for her to tell where the maintenance rooms were.
Eventually she made it to the end of the hall and saw that it turned, no doubt connecting to the first one she'd been in. But to her amazement and annoyance, there wasn't a stairwell. She supposed that it could've been hidden in one of the corners, but she didn't think so.
Groaning in frustration, she paused. She hadn't seen anything like a maintenance room either, at least not that she'd recognized as such, which meant she had to start opening doors to try and find it, a process that could take hours. She briefly debated calling Gaige, in part to get her advice and in part to warn her, but she decided to hold off for a little while, she wanted to check something first.
She had two ideas as she headed back the way she'd come, the first was that the room behind the elevator had to be some kind of maintenance for it and the second was to try the room she'd just stopped in front of, the one directly opposite from the one that held the airlock.
She had two reasons for that, the first was that it was symmetrical and thus far, the place had been symmetrical, even the elevators had been matched across the room, even though she'd only checked one. The second reason was that the door had a slightly different spacing between it and the ones on either side of it then any others in the hall, which led her to believe that there was a reason for it.
Since that one was the closest, she started there.
It took some work, but the door opened, it hadn't been locked all that well, apparently not many of the people who worked here wanted to go into the maintenance area, so it was closed with only a rudimentary lock.
The door slid open, revealing a rather disappointing sight. The room was packed with equipment which she figured was somehow connected to the water supply, though she couldn't be sure. Thick pipes ran into the room, before entering one of the machines and branching out in smaller ones that left the room through the ceiling. Other than that, it didn't appear to be much there aside from some shelves that held spare parts and some cleaning supplies.
Trying not to feel too down, she headed to her next best hope, the door nearest to the elevator, figuring that it had to have some kind of maintenance access.
This time, the lock proved to be much sturdier, nearly causing her to quit and look around the receptionist area again to try and locate any keys that she knew weren't there, but in the end, the lock gave and the door opened.
What she found was a surprise, definitely not what she'd been expecting, but even stranger was that the room wasn't one she'd expected to find in the building at all. The only way she could describe it was an apartment.
Straight ahead of her was a small living room, complete with an overstuffed couch and matching chairs seated around a small table. On the wall they were facing was a monitor over a number of electronic devices that included at least one movie player. Nearer to the door, was a closet set on one side and opposite it was a small kitchenette and dining area.
Moving in in a bit of a state of shock, she saw one door led to a bathroom and the other to a bedroom. She found herself looking around in confusion. She'd known that the executives must've lived somewhere, but she hadn't thought it would be in the same building they worked in, unless of course this was only their residential quarters, but she didn't feel that was right, after all, if they only lived here, why were the upper floors closed off?
She poked into the bedroom and opened the massive standing closet and to her surprise, found it filled with clothes, it seemed that not even the execs had been allowed to clear their stuff out, which might have something to do with the lockdown.
The nightstand next to the bed held products that she didn't want to see, so she quickly closed that drawer, even as she wondered why someone would need handcuffs with pink fur on them, and vacated the rooms.
She stood in the hall, pondering what to do next, if the room behind the elevators weren't for maintenance, then that must mean they were either on the top floor, or more likely, in some kind of basement, but she had no idea how to access it and even if she could, how she was going to open the shutters, which meant the elevator was out, so where did that leave her?
Thinking about it, she supposed she should call Gaige and get her opinion, but she didn't want to keep pestering the other girl, not when she didn't think she'd really given it her all yet, so she put her mind to work.
She'd tried the stairs and the elevators without luck and she hadn't found the air system, but where would that be? She didn't think that the pipes running up the outside of the building could carry enough air for the entire place, so that wasn't likely it.
The basement, she realized. If the elevator equipment was down there, then it would make sense for the air machinery to be down there as well, it certainly hadn't been on the roof and it wasn't likely to be in one of the rooms, so that left her with only that option.
But the problem was, how to get access to it?
The more she thought about it, the more she suspected that there wasn't any access from within the building itself, it probably required some kind of special key to get into and was no doubt locked up tighter than the building itself, which meant that it was out.
So where did that leave her?
Nowhere. She couldn't get through to any of the machinery, nor could she go up, which left going back outside. Maybe she could force the roof access. Sure, it would set off the alarm, but what other option did she have.
Mulling it over, she looked up, as if she could see all the way to the roof and then another idea occurred to her.
She must have remembered the last time she'd found the answer on the ceiling, because there weren't any vents around where she was to trigger the thought, just because she couldn't get into the vents at their source, there was nothing preventing her from getting into them somewhere else.
She headed back to the room and reexamined it, this time ignoring all the furnishings and only focusing on the vents. Most of them were way too small to fit into, even for her, but two of them had some hope, the only problem was, how to get to them.
They were both on the ceiling, one in the bedroom and one in the kitchenette. Looking at them, the one in the kitchenette would be the harder one to open, since it had some kind of screen over it and she could still see the machinery behind it, no doubt to suck the cooking smoke out of the room, so she headed to the bedroom.
That vent was clean and she could feel the slight movement of air coming from it, which meant it would lead back to the source if she followed it that far, but she only wanted to go part way, until it split and headed up.
Looking around the room she realized that to get access to it would require a fair amount of work so rather than getting to it, she left the room and headed across the hall. If she was going to put that much effort into rearranging the furniture, she might as well make it as straight a shot up as she could and since the duct would likely come up from the core of the building, that was where she should try and access it, so she moved along the hall and got to work opening the room that she thought would be the best bet at getting her near the source.
It took a bit, but considerably less time than the first to pick the lock, having figured out some of the tricks to it and soon enough she found herself in a similar looking room. That's not to say things weren't different, the couch was a different color and was arranged against one of the walls. There was a bookcase with all kinds of technical looking books on it that Gaige would've loved and the bedroom was much less messy, but overall, it was the same template.
She got to work quickly, heaving the mattress out of the way, as much height as it gave her, it didn't make a good base to work on. Once that was clear, she went out and took the books off the shelves before dragging that into the bedroom and after bracing it against the table and nightstand, carefully climbed up till she could reach the vent. If she hadn't found the bookshelf, she would've just set a chair on the table and hoped she could stretch high enough, but the bookshelf worked way better than that, her only concern was that while it looked nice, she wasn't too sure about how sturdy it was, after all, most furniture wasn't designed to be climbed upon, not even by someone as light as her.
But it held as she unscrewed the panel and tossed it aside. Poking her head into the hole, she looked around. The duct was even smaller than the ones on the Project Odysseus station, but she could still fit. She figured it was probably about the size of the sewage pipe she'd had to slime her way through, but without the slime for lubricant, not that she was complaining about that.
Dropping back down, she rearranged her gear, making sure that she had her tools tucked into her sleeve so that she could undo the vent cover at the other end and packed everything else into her bag, tied that to her ankle and climbed back up.
With one last look around, she let out a sigh and pulled herself up and in.
She turned so that she was moving with the airflow on her face and slithered forward, once again grateful that she wasn't claustrophobic. But that didn't mean she liked this. In fact, she rather hated it. She didn't like not being able to breath, to feel the wind on her skin. She didn't like the way the metal pressed against her and made it hard to take a deep breath.
But she had to admit, things could be worse. If she'd been built like Gaige, she wouldn't have been able to fit at all, after all, if she could barely fit, there was no way Gaige's chest would've been able to compact enough to squeeze in.
Thinking of the other girl made her sad again. Not just because of the situation they were in, which was bad enough. First, she'd been chased for years, then when she finally gets free and sends the person responsible to jail, she gets hit with the fines. She managed to pay them off, but then feels like she owes someone for helping raise the money, and now, just when that was starting to look brighter, she finds out that the guy who was responsible in the first place is back. It was enough to cause anyone to want to quit. But Gaige had taken it in stride, moving forward with determination and fully intent on ending this once and for all, which Artemis approved of.
What she didn't understand was the rest of it. Why was Gaige being so weird about her? It was like she was trying to convince herself of something and Artemis was afraid of what it was. That she'd throw away her life just to pay back some debt that she didn't owe in the first place.
'But what if that's not what it is?' She thought. That'd be worse, cause then Artemis had no way of knowing how to deal. She'd never had anyone like her before, not really, at least not that she was aware of, so she didn't know how to react. What if Gaige stated she wanted something like that? How would she react? She didn't know, and that scared her. She sincerely hoped that Gaige wouldn't go that route, just as much as she hoped she would.
She shook her head, trying to clear it of such nonsense. This wasn't the time and it certainly wasn't the place to daydream like that, she was stuck in a narrow tube, inching forward, she needed to focus, especially since she could see a vertical shaft coming up.
Given the size of the vent she was working her way through, changing to vertical was going to present a fair amount of challenge. Once she'd made her way there, she was relieved to see that the vertical was a bit wider than the one she'd been in, and that there was a vent straight across from her. It took no small amount of maneuvering, but she managed to drag herself across and then let her feet down, dragging herself backwards as she oozed around, till she was vertical. The entire process took a number of minutes and resulted in more than a dozen scrapes and bruises, but she was able to proceed, so she felt it was worth it.
Traveling up wasn't all that hard, just a matter of bracing herself and pushing with her legs. She traveled for some ways, though it was hard to tell how far since the inside of the vent wasn't marked, but she was sure she should've come across the second floor by then, but she didn't see any sign of the vents intersecting, so she kept climbing.
Eventually she came to the top and had to wiggle her way around again. Doing her best to orientate herself so that she'd be headed towards the back of the building, she managed to stuff herself into the vent, which she swore was smaller than the first one she'd been in. She could barely move in it, relying on her cybernetics to scooch her forward a few inches at a time.
She wondered what she'd have to do if she didn't come to a vent that she could get out of, it wasn't like she could turn and the prospect of trying to move backwards terrified her.
Just as the panic was starting to set in, she spotted light up ahead and redoubled her efforts.
For a while she wondered if she was actually moving forward, since the light didn't seem to be getting any closer, but eventually she made it and was able to look down through the vent at the room below.
This room was just as opulent as the ones on the first floor, if not more so, but unlike them, it wasn't a living area, but either a meeting room or someone had a desk the size of an Outrunner. The thing was massive, made out of some kind of wood and no doubt more expensive than her ship. But none of that mattered, all that mattered to her was that it was a way out.
Digging the tools out of her cuff, she went to work and before long the vent cover fell into the room, banging noisily against the table, no doubt leaving a ding in the finish.
It took some finagling, but she managed to ooze her way out, but wasn't able to get any kind of hold, so she wound up falling onto the table with a solid impact, managing to roll slightly so that the bag she'd been dragging along behind her didn't land on her.
Laying there, she slowly looked around. To her relief, it turned out to be a conference room, she couldn't imagine what the rest of an office that had a desk that big would've looked like.
Around the desk, pushed back against the walls, were a number of high-backed leather chairs that for some reason looked like the kind of things an evil organization would sit around in, toasting the demise of the hero in some low-grade action movie that Gaige would've made her watch.
Part of her wished she could take one of them with her.
The walls of the room were hung with paintings, one of which she recognized as a family portrait of the head of the company. Which she supposed meant that the girl in it had to be Marcie and the older woman, her mother. It was the first time that Artemis had really seen what they looked like. Even taking into account the fact that the painter had no doubt touched up some stuff, she was a good-looking girl, something that Artemis didn't want to admit. She could see the shape of her mother's face reflected in hers, though her mom did look a bit, well, harsh? That wasn't the right word, but she couldn't think of it at the moment and since the entire family looked a bit evil, that wasn't it, though that might have just been her bias talking.
Not wanting to waste any more time, she rolled off the table with a groan and got to reequipping herself after dusting herself off. Feeling much better with some firepower, she headed to the main door in the room and cautiously out into the hall.
The carpet was even thicker and plusher than the one downstairs, something she hadn't thought was possible, but undeniably so. The doors were wood, but she could tell that it was only a vernier, underneath they were even solider than the ones below, she doubted anyone could get through them without a fair amount of explosives or some industrial grade cutting equipment, which sent a shiver of worry down her spine. She really hoped that she wasn't about to get trapped by one of them.
Orientating herself, she headed to the back of the building, to where she figured the boss's office had to be. It didn't take her long to cover the distance, it seemed that whatever was at the back of the building took up almost half of its top floor, which considering the size of the place, was ridiculous.
The double doors stood closed, but opened without much effort on her part, which worried her that she was walking into a trap.
After a quick glance around the room, which was as big as one of the first-floor apartments, she checked the inside of the door jamb, making sure that there wasn't any way for it to be remotely closed. She figured there could still be other ways, such as magnetics, but since she didn't see any attached machinery or electronics, she thought she might be safe. Still, that didn't prevent her from rolling a table from the side of the room over and wedging it in the doorway, just to be sure.
Surveying the room again, she thought rooms like it had some kind of name, though she couldn't remember it at the time, something about where you kept guests waiting, but her brain was barely functioning considering the surreal nature of the place.
She hadn't been to many fancy houses in her life, in fact other than the Jakobs estate and the old Montamore one, she hadn't been in any at all, the best she'd been in was a few mayors' houses, but those were on backwater planets, so they barely even counted. She'd been in a strange mansion on Feno Phena, but she wasn't sure that really counted. So, she didn't have much of a frame of reference, but this place put them all to shame. It even made Timothy's office look shabby, though that might have been due to the construction and the years it had been locked off.
The room looked like it belonged in some kind of movie about a debutant, not sitting next to a factory on the edge of space. It made no sense. Part of her had been thinking that this place had to be to make the workers work harder in an effort to improve their station, but this was beyond that.
The furniture looked antique, the paintings didn't look forged, not that she could've told either way, everything was tasteful and clean.
She wandered in, looking around, painfully aware of the dust she was tracking in, and stopped. Looking around she could see three doors, each with golden handles. She figured straight ahead would be the correct way for business, but she decided to go around and see what was behind the others first.
The first one led to a dining room, the table long enough that a dozen people could've easily eaten around it. Past that, she assumed would be the kitchen and off to one side, some kind of smoking room, she could still smell the awful stench of cigars in the air.
'What kind of person smokes cigars around all these antiques?' She thought 'It would seep in and destroy their value.'
She knew the answer, someone that didn't care about the value of the things they had, which ticked her off, so she left the room and walked back across the entrance.
The room opposite was some kind of library and work room mixed together. The outside was lined with books, which she got the feeling the owner had never even opened, they'd just bought them to show how intelligent and sophisticated they were. On the table in the middle was a series of plans with notes on them, so she went over and folded them up, shoving them in her pack so that Gaige could look at them later.
The only other door in the room led to a short hall, so she went back and tried the last door in the first room.
It turned out that she'd been right, since it led to a massive office.
The far wall was dominated by a window, which stood open to show the expanse of the planet. In front of that was a large desk of wood and metal, trimmed in gold. It looked so ostentatious that she hated it at a glance. She'd never been one for useless filigree and such, even though most of her Jakobs guns had more than their fair share, she'd never understood the point, if you were going to put that kind of effort into it, why not just improve the gun itself or baring that, just spend the time making another?
She knew that some people saw it as a sign of wealth, a way to say 'Look how much money I have, I can waste it by making someone spend days making these silly lines all over my stuff.' but that didn't mean she had to approve.
The rest of the room was no better, near to the door was a smaller meeting area, with a few chairs seated around a table that was kitted out with so much tech, she wondered if it would transform and attack her. The walls had books on the sides part way around, interrupted by a fireplace, which caused her to stop and re-look out the window to remind herself that she was in space and that it had to be fake.
Over the fireplace hung another painting of Marcie Holloway, which led to a sinking suspicion about the room. Giving into it, Artemis moved closer to the desk.
The walls past the bookshelves were covered in framed documents, most of which were patents and accolades for the Holloway Robotics Corporation. Interspersed among them were photos, mostly of Mr. Holloway shaking hands with people, or sitting next to them or at parties.
Looking at the desk uneasily, Artemis made her way around it and saw the pictures sitting on top of it were all of Marcie Holloway, which meant one of two things, either the owner of the place had an unhealthy interest in her or was her father.
Probably both.
