Miss Pauling gasped for air. She shook violently as the machine hissed and crackled around her. She coughed and hacked, like the air around her couldn't move to her lungs. When the pod door swung open, Miss P all but threw herself out. She shuddered on her hands and knees, choking, her body struggling to return to room temperature.
"Administrator? Is it over?" She called out through ragged breaths.
An alarmed blared in the distance. There was no response. Miss Pauling looked up.
"Administrator?"
The room was silent save for the hissing of the pod Pauling had escaped from. Pauling lent back into a kneeling position before rising to her feet; she hugged herself for warmth.
The Administrator was not there.
But Miss Pauling was used to her boss abandoning her, it was expected, there were greater things to be taken care of. Pauling brushed herself down to compose herself and, after finding that her only exit was also the way in, headed for the steel door. Bidwell should be around, Miss P thought, That's what she said.
What Miss Pauling wasn't expecting was the dim and rusted hallway before her. The smell of ozone filled the assistant's lungs, she could hear liquid drip from the pipes above her head while the fluorescent lights buzzed and flickered noisily.
Miss Pauling felt herself shiver for an entirely different reason.
Had she moved? This wasn't the way she'd came in, she would have felt or at least heard a teleportation device.
Hesitantly, Miss Pauling stepped into the hallway. She instinctively readied one hand to grab her gun, only to remember that she'd put it away in the vault's lockers. The click-clack of heels sounded far less confident than it had minutes ago, but Miss Pauling willed herself to keep walking. This was the Administrator's vault after all, nothing dangerous could make it's way in. Miss Pauling was just being... Cautious. The Administrator would be most disappointed to find that her prized assistant had died within her own vault.
Before she knew it, Miss Pauling was at the next door. She reached out to disengage the lock but was met with an angry buzz.
"What?" Pauling said.
She tried again and found the same results, the door was locked.
With a huff, Miss Pauling turned back to the corridor. The flickering lights and dirty walls becoming less imposing and more of an annoyance. She tried the door to her left to no avail, but the door to her right slid open with a hiss.
The lights blinked to life as she stepped inside.
At any other time, Pauling would have loved to sort through this room. With desks and tables covered in files and radio equipment, devices that would tap phones and intercept calls, fake letters and forged signatures galore. But right now, all Miss Pauling wanted was a way out.
And that she found. Something that would lead to the room behind the locked door: an air vent.
With the help of a metal chair and a screwdriver (found in a desk draw), the vent was separated from its duct. Then, being thankful for her size, Miss Pauling hefted herself into the ductwork.
It was dustier than she'd expected. This vault was new unless Dell had created an air vent that sucked in dust. However that was meant to help, Dell was no fan of over complications.
Thankfully, the next room was not far away. Just a twist and a turn. The next grate came away with ease, three of the four corners had rusted away, leaving the vent brittle. Dell had clearly been slacking. No amount of stress could excuse this, she would be having words with him as soon as this was over.
As she jumped down into the next room, the lights switched on automatically. She dusted down the grey stains on her purple shirt and made to the exit. She weaved between crates and shelves and stepped out into the previously locked hall.
Pauling gasped when she glanced at the offending door. Slumped against it, dust covered and fully clothed, was a skeleton.
Dell must have been really slacking on these vaults if an intruder had made it this far in before being killed. But why destroy their identity only to put their clothes back on?
As Miss Pauling got closer she began to notice details about the skeleton. For one it still had wisps of skin and hair stuck to its skull, Pauling knew that an acid bath would have removed that. Another thing was the foul stench of rot. Then there was the note screwed up in the skeleton's fist.
Pauling crouched to pull the note free, wrinkling her nose at the rank smell and straightening the paper out. She recognised the hasty scrawl immediately.
"Bidwell?" She sighed, "Bidwell, is this meant to be some kind of test?" She called out into the empty hallway.
"I know you think you're more experienced but trust me, you've never worked for somebody like the Administrator."
She inspected the skeleton again and smirked. "You must have gotten this thing from Medic, right? Is it the infamous one?...No, he wouldn't let you borrow that…Still don't know a patient would wake up after that."
Miss Pauling sniffed, then read the note.
Pauling.. Admin is.. Danger.. Run.
The writing was badly faded, like the author hadn't pressed the pen down hard enough, had then rubbed something wet on it. Some words were missing.
"The Administrator's in danger?!" When the thought clicked into Miss Pauling's head, all theories of the skeleton left her. "Why didn't you say so?"
Miss Pauling leapt to her feet and swept down the hall. She was forced to use the same trick as before to get out of the hallway, but she'd crawl through a million air vents to save the Administrator.
Was it Gray Mann? Had he found where she'd been hiding? Is that why Her voice was gone?
Something niggled in the back of Miss Pauling's head. Like she was missing something. It was a feeling she'd learnt to never ignore.
Pauling stopped. She looked over the dust and grime, the rust and the leaky pipes. In a corner was a security camera, it's blue light bore into her. She felt goosebumps rise on her arms again.
"Bidwell, if this is some kind of prank, it's not funny." She hissed at the camera.
Engineer could have been working on this place for a long time and he's always busy. Pauling's sense of reason told her, That machine moved and Engie hasn't gotten around to fixing this place up yet.
Then what's with the body?
Miss Pauling took a deep breath, counted to ten, then released it. The Administrator was in danger. There was no time for standing around, she had to find a way out.
The Administrator's assistant marched herself down the last hall.
At the end she found a stairwell and a lift, identical to the one she'd used to get down into the vault. After a moment's debate, she took the lift. She trusted that Engineer had at least kept that in shape, the stairs would take too long.
Thankfully, the only broken thing inside the elevator was the floor indicator. Miss Pauling's stomach lurched as she and the car climbed the floors. With a pleasant ding the doors eased open. Miss Pauling stepped into an all too familiar room: the locker room.
But the vault's locker room was not how she'd remembered it. It was darker with only the emergency light active. The pristine locker doors had lost their metallic shine, they barely glinted at all in the low light.
Pauling approached the set of lockers, one door was firmly closed. She knew she'd put her revolver in that exact place, behind a much cleaner door. She ripped it open like she was tearing off a band-aid.
She'd never been so sad to see that gun.
Gray Mann must have hit, she knew it now. He'd gone after the Administrator and tried to break into the deepest parts of this vault. The robots had gone and made it all like this. Or maybe Engineer had finally worked on the gun that would rust the robot's joints and he'd used that down here. Or maybe…
Miss Pauling deflated. Theories would do nothing to help the Administrator, she needed answers.
Even though she'd only passed through the vault once, Miss Pauling could remember seeing a computer, a terminal in a bigger room. A room like the Administrator's, lined with monitors. And if the room was anything like the Administrator's, it'd have cameras, and cameras normally meant answers.
The room was not like the Administrator's.
The Administrator's room glowed with electricity, blue light cast dark shadows in every part of it. It buzzed with power. It smelt strongly of the world's most expensive tobacco. You could feel Her presence in it before you even saw Her, sitting up straight on her tall leather chair.
This room was not like the Administrator's.
This room was drab and dusty. Everything was a dirty grey, even the monitors. Almost all of them were shattered, the keyboards and input sockets had been mangled as if someone had taken a baseball bat to them. The only terminal that was still active poured a green light onto the skeleton seated at the desk. This one was the exact same as the last, except wearing a trenchcoat and had a tv screen strapped to its chest.
Miss Pauling rolled the seat and the skeleton aside with a hint of remorse. The wheels squeaked as she pushed the body away. She turned towards the monitors in silence.
The terminal was as low tech as everyone else's household computer. It showed only a few lines of text green and absolutely no images. Somebody else had signed in. There were only three files available. She read them.
"I don't know why the Administrator wants to have her most useful asset down here but it doesn't matter, I don't call the shots. It just seems dangerous."
Most useful asset? Was this about... her?
The sadness in Miss Pauling's chest was replaced with a swell of pride.
The next file was quick to extinguish it.
"It's been a few days now and the mercs have already missed her, they've kept quiet though. They're just silently mourning, I think we all are. But they know if they make a peep they're be joining her."
Miss Pauling read the lines over and over. Missed? Mourning? Joining her? That wasn't right. And a few days? She'd left the mercenaries for longer than a few days before, it was nothing new. She was a busy woman after all. They wouldn't assume her dead. Well, Scout might, if she didn't answer his calls.
Miss Pauling shuddered again when a single question popped into her head.
'How long have I been gone?'
She glanced at the skeleton, her mind scrambling to remember how long a body took to become bones. 10 years was it? No, she refused to have been gone that long.
In frustration, Miss Pauling closed the file. There was only one left, she forced herself to open it.
"It's over, it's all over. I'm sorry, I tried my best but I know that I have failed you. God forgive me."
Miss Pauling stared at the skeleton again. She looked deep into its hollow eyes, expecting to find something. Like it would spring back to life and explain everything that was going on. Or maybe just tell her that everything was okay. The idea of the skeleton coming back to life made her shiver once more.
She turned her back on both the terminal and the skeleton and gazed up at the many dead monitors that lined the wall. It was hauntingly similar to the Administrator's office. Pauling took a step closer before running her fingers along the dented keyboard. She gently pushed the enter key, as if it would bring the place to life. It didn't.
When she leant close to the screens, she could still smell the burnt out bulbs and singed plastic. But when she leant closer, she noticed something else behind the broken glass. Tentatively, she reached in, careful to avoid the glass shards. She gripped the embedded object with her thumb and forefinger and tugged it out. She held the copper bullet to her face.
"This doesn't make any sense." Miss P muttered. A lump grew in her throat. "This isn't-This isn't fair."
She threw the bullet to the floor. "This isn't fair!"
It was too much. Miss Pauling turned on her heels and click-clacked out of the useless room. The room that gave her more questions than answers. The room that was too much like the Administrator's for her to bare.
Pauling wanted out. The walls were suddenly claustrophobic. She needed fresh air and daylight and people. It was too much.
Her legs carried her towards the exit, seemingly of their own accord. Up another, smaller set of stairs and out into a wide metallic room. Covering one wall was the great, gear-shaped vault door. It was four times Miss Pauling's height and a few hundred times her weight. A yellow 0 had been printed in the centre of it.
To Miss Pauling's relief, the terminals and control panel were active, spilling green into the oily grey room. She walked up to it only to trip on yet another skeleton. She nudged the trench coat sporting skeleton aside with her foot and stepped up to the control panel.
In fluorescent green, the screen read "ACCESS DENIED". On the dashboard beside it was a black and blue screen. It took Miss Pauling a moment but she recognised the device, it was a biometric scanner. Had this been here when she came in? Maybe, the Administrator hadn't exactly asked her to look around.
Miss Pauling placed her hand on the scanner. The console hummed as a white line analysed her hand. The terminal flickered, "ACCESS GRANTED" appeared on the screen.
"Oh thank God." Miss Pauling breathed.
An orange light flashed overhead. A mechanical arm swung down from the ceiling and connected itself to the vault door. With an ear piercing screech, the massive steel door was pulled free and rolled to the side.
Beyond the vault was the same dark cave Miss Pauling had travelled down at the Administrator's request. The door had opened for her in just the same way.
A breeze swept over her face and tousled her hair. The air felt warm but far more welcoming to the staleness of the vault. It cleared her head. Outside she could find help, find out what happened. Miss Pauling readied her gun. If robots had attacked she'd be ready. She'd go find the mercs, find Saxton and the Administrator.
Outside she'd understand.