16 retreated downwards slowly, each step on the fragile metal stairs a cautious movement. Her eye dared not look away from the USECs before her, locked on for any indication that she had been detected.
For their part, the mercenaries seemed entirely focussed on their cards and conversation. 16 had only poked the top of her head up, so it was unlikely any of them had noticed her before she slipped back into the passageway below.
She briefly thought about turning back and leaving. The door she'd come through was right by her, the lock would likely be no challenge to open once more.
However, if she did she'd be right back where she'd started.
So instead, M16 faced down the long dark tunnel that was now her only safe path forward. Green IR light reflecting off of airborne dust, giving an appearance like a ghostly fog was filling the passage. The only sources of light down there were a few faint glow sticks that had been set at intervals along its length.
With a shallow, apprehensive breath in, she began to slowly creep along the passage.
Step by step she progressed, carefully placing her foot to avoid making any noise, rifle and eye always scanning for threats. The sounds of chatting and laughing USECs echoed off the walls.
The next set of stairs down were lit by one of the glowsticks, and past them a sharp corner loomed out from the gloom. She slipped past the staircase, rifle pointed upward just in case, then slipped around the corner.
The far side of the corner proved to be better lit, but presented new challenges as well. There was a junction in the tunnel, with five paths to choose between. Three of these were tunnels, much like the one she was coming from, with nothing but blackness beyond their the other two were a pair of ramps that lead back up into what M16 assumed was the main factory floor. These two were far better lit, and wider.
Briefly she considered poking her head out to investigate the ramps, but just as she was creeping close to do so, a series of footfalls sent her scurrying back into the dark tunnels for safety.
A pair of USECs passed by the mouth of the ramp, plainly visible in the bright lights illuminating the upper floor. These two were not chatting, and seemed to be on some kind of patrol. They passed by without more than a quick glance down the ramp.
16 quietly wrote the main floor off, and proceeded back along the direction she had been going, delving back into the tunnel network once more.
A few more twists and turns, and she came out into an open pit area dominated by several massive pressure tanks of some kind. The towering structures spanned all the way from the sub level floor to nearly the roof of the factory itself, and gave her enough cover to feel safe as she crept along the pit's rim.
More footsteps. 16 froze.
Another patrol, or possibly the same as the one before, marched along the rim of the pit, stepping over crumbling concrete and twisted rebar as they moved along. 16 pressed up against the nearest of the tanks and began creeping along it, trying to keep the structure between her and the USECs just in case they decided to flash a light down into the pit.
However, it seemed the men had no interest, and double timing it over towards some other destination. They disappeared from view, and 16 heard a door squeak open a moment later.
She looked up in the direction they'd been headed, and noticed the structure they must've just entered into. It was a large three story block built into the factory wall and jutting out from it, with a few windows inlaid along its upper walls.
"Are those the offices?" She wondered under her breath, her brow furrowing as she tried to recall Jaeger's words from hours prior. "So to get underneath…"
She glanced further along the pit, and noticed a few more tunnel entrances, including one which looked like it would lead in the direction of the offices.
After waiting a moment more to listen for movement, 16 carefully made her way over to it, and slipped into the tunnel.
This one was quite a bit shorter, leading almost immediately to a T junction. The direction leading towards the office was very well lit, and ended in another metal stairwell while the other way seemed to lead off into darkness, though small flashing light blinking somewhere off in the murk.
"Not it?" She muttered, "a map would've been helpful Jaeger."
Neither direction seemed to lead to anything resembling a machine shop under the offices, as described by the old hunter. Perhaps the Shop was on the main floor, which would mean the brightly lit and likely very dangerous stairs were her way forward. Or perhaps it lay in another section of tunnel, in which case the dark tunnels were likely her best bet.
A map of the factory would have been nice indeed.
Still, a choice had to be made, and considering the well armed nature of the current factory occupants, 16 chose the safer path. She pressed on into the dark tunnel and began trying to investigate the strange blinking she was seeing. A little ways in and she came upon a wider section of the tunnel with a couple doors. Here the source of the blinking was revealed: a CCTV camera. One of two in the space in fact, one above each door.
16 cocked her head while staring at the camera, confused by its still blinking light, wondering if she'd seen ones' like them anywhere else in the factory.
Then she heard an audible click, followed by a heavy whirring sound emanating from one of the doors. A moment later the heavy door swung open, bathing her in mute blue light from inside that threatened to wash out her eye's vision.
"I saw you come in through the tunnels. Are you one of Ivan's?" a voice asked from somewhere inside.
16 couldn't see the source but could tell it was male and middle aged. His voice wasn't deep, but not tinny either, a treble rasp of a voice.
"In a manner of speaking," She replied, "You are?"
"Samoylov."
"Then you're who I'm looking for."
"In that case, come in."
16 cautiously obeyed, stepping through the heavy door and slipping on her sunglasses as she did. The shades dulled the otherwise blinding blue light, enough to see Samoylov in the room as more than vague shadows.
He was thin, wearing a flannel and jeans with a head of short brown hair and thick rimmed glasses. He appeared to be in his mid forties, and looked like he was beyond tired of the world already.
"You are?" he asked.
"Anna," She replied.
Looking around, she saw that this was indeed the machine shop she'd been looking for, though it had been entirely renovated for another purpose. Many of the machines were unhooked and resting in the corner under tarps, and in their place was a bed, fridge, cooking equipment, dozens of computers, and a myriad of other home comforts. Many workbenches and machines still remained as well, and tool chests and storage cabinets lined the walls.
"You live here?" she asked.
"For now," He replied simply, "Why are you here?"
"I need your help with something. I spoke with Jae- Ivan, and he recommended you."
"Then it'll be some tech in need of repairs I imagine," he said, sounding bored, "What is it?"
"It's… an experimental hybrid optical device combining optical, Infrared, and thermal imaging with an Augmented Reality display."
Samoylov's head perked up at the sanitized description of her eye. His attention now fully engaged with gears turning, the sudden turn speaking to passion in his work beyond the professional.
"That's interesting. What's wrong with it?" He said in an even tone belying his obvious interest.
"It's currently stuck on IR, it's impossible to use during the day."
Samoylov gave a thoughtful nod, "Damage?"
"I mean, I recently was nearly crushed by a building alongside it, and it's only been getting worse. I imagine that had something to do with it."
The man gave her an appraising look through narrowed eyes. She imagined she looked half insane from his point of view: a one eyed, sunglass wearing stranger who'd just snuck through dozens of heavily armed mercenaries to reach him, just to repair what she claimed to be a fancy optic.
Still, 16 put on a stoic face.
"Alright," he said, "but it won't be for free."
"I don't exactly have any cash."
"Mmm," he nodded thoughtfully, "well, how about a deal then. I have a job I need to get done, but under the current circumstances I can't get it done alone. Help me, and I'll see what I can do."
M16 crossed her arms, "What's the job?"
"Repairs. My antennae got damaged in some of the fighting that's come through here. There are two fuse boxes that seem to be the source of the problem, but there are quite a few tourists between us and them."
"Ah," she nodded, understanding, "since I got in here, you figure I can reach them as well?"
Samoylov nodded, "Essentially."
She sighed, "Okay, fine. Anything I should know?"
"I'll show you."
Samoylov beckoned her over, and began reviewing locations and directions, as well as the details of the job in question. 16 passively listened, recording the briefing as her mind was occupied elsewhere.
This was proving fruitful so far, but she still foresaw trouble ahead. Samoylov didn't know what she was, nor did Ivan or anyone else in the city save truth coming out could be problematic, she could be hunted, exploited, or ostracized for it. Getting what she wanted from Samoylov could lead to just that happening too. Hard to hide that her eye is an eye to the person repairing it after all.
She'd just have to cross that bridge when she got to it, she supposed. Just getting to that point may be a difficult task unto itself.
"Once more unto the breach huh?" she muttered to herself as she crept along the dark tunnels, having left Samoylov's hideout. On her hip rattled a toolbelt, with everything the man could think of that she may need to fulfill her end of the bargain they'd struck.
"I recommend you walk along the rafters. Especially now, the neighbors will have a hard time seeing you up there," Samoylov's voice spoke over her comms.
Before she'd left, he'd asked if she had a radio, and gave a frequency so they could talk. So now she had a little voice inside her head, though from her experience he shouldn't know the difference between internal comms and a handheld radio from his end.
"Okay, how do I get up there from here?"
"Two ways, turn right outside the door, and either take your first left or right. Either way will lead you to some staircases that will get you up."
"Alright."
M16 did as she was instructed, taking the lefthand route as it was a little closer to her, and found herself cautiously creeping up a ramp that led out onto the main factory floor.
She paused just below the top, scanning out into the ghostly green murk for any movement, listening for any hints of activity, but got nothing but distant echoing chatter from across the building. Other than the distant voices it was dead quiet, and painfully still.
So she made her move, clinging to shadows and moving slowly out onto the main floor, looking around for the staircase.
As advertised, the stairs weren't far off. The old rust eaten metal creaked and groaned as she placed her weight on the stairs, making her wince with each step as she slowly crept up towards the darkness above. Eventually her feet hit more solid concrete, which formed the upper gangways Samoylov had described.
"Good Job so far. The cameras can't see you, hopefully the USECs won't either."
M16's eye darted around briefly, finding a small light shining in the middle distance, which she presumed to be one such camera. Even in IR, it was difficult to see the camera itself in the darkness, which did give her a little hope that the man was right.
The upper level to the factory was far from a proper floor, and more of a harrowing tightrope walk of narrow concrete beams, no more than two feet wide, with rails laid atop them. Each step was a treacherous gamble, inviting a loud fall to the dark factory floor below.
"You'll need to make it to the bridge, there'll be a way over to the otherside there," advised Samoylov.
The bridge was just visible in the gloom, backlit by a distant yellow glow coming from the far side. It was a wider slab of concrete, resting atop the far end of the gangway and connecting them to the top floor of the factory offices through a closed door.
Conscious of the door, 16 clung to the shadows as she reached the bridge. Her body compressed down to be as small and low to the railings as possible as she peered down onto the factory floor on the other side. This side was better lit than anywhere else she'd seen, with several different sources of illumination shining brightly, and a small band of USECs stationed near another of the entry gates near the offices, numbering four in total. Two of the mercenaries were asleep, slumped up against the metal walls of the gates on bedrolls, while the other two patrolled back and forth in the area.
16 pressed a finger to her ear, acting as if she were wearing an earpiece, "Samoylov, I'm at the bridge. Where now ?"
"There are two breaks indicated, boards five and six. Five is next to gate 4, which is where you first entered from, and six is down the hall leading from gate 4 to gate 3."
"Which is gate 3?"
"If you're at the bridge, it will be right below you."
16 eyed the USECs still milling outside of the gate in question. "Awful lot of USECs in the area."
"If I could do something about that, I wouldn't need you. They don't go into the hallway too often, start there, we may not need the other one for now."
"Right…" She mumbled, rolling her eyes before taking another look around.
A little ways away there was another walkway, which extended out over the factory floor and lead to a few large tanks of some kind. They were just tall enough that she was able to carefully climb down from the walkway above onto the nearest tank, her boots just barely able to reach the railing atop them as she dangled.
M16 put more and more of her weight onto the rusted railing, slowly settling down onto it, before finally letting go of the walkway above without a sound.
From there getting to the hall in question was easy, just a slowly walk down the stairs that lead off of the tanks, and slipping into the shadow wreathed hall just beyond.
At the far end of the windowed hall she could see the still glowing light and chatter voices of the USECs, seemingly still engrossed in the same game from earlier. Then her eye spotted a small red light glowing dimly nearby, which on closer inspection was revealed to belong to a box set into the wall.
"I found the board, what now?" she said, opening the boxes' door to find a mess of wires and fuses inside.
"Check if anything is unplugged, if a wire got yanked out, and then check the fuses."
After a quick assessment, 16 replied, "Wires look okay, but there's a few blown fuses."
"Which ones?"
The fuses in questions were smaller cylindrical objects, each with some pretty obvious damage to them. There were no identifying marks on either however.
"Uhh, large-ish ones? It looks like there's four of this kind in total, with two damaged…." She paused, trying to think of a good way to describe them, "They're about 3 centimeters in diameter, and four high?"
"... okay, you should have a couple of those in the belt I gave you. Switch off the main power with the switch near the top left of the board, wait a few seconds until the light on the outside goes out, then swap the fuses. Don't switch anything back on until I say so."
"Copy," She mumbled, already in motion as she switched off the power to the box.
About four seconds after, the red light flicked off, and she felt around in her belt for the fuses. Sure enough, she found a small custom made box which contained several different kinds of fuses, including a few of the kind she needed. So with a deft hand, M16 reached in through the tangles of wires and unscrewed the relevant fuses, then replaced them with the new ones.
All the while, she felt a growing urgency as she worked. Turning her head side to side, listening as carefully for any sign of a USEC headed her way.
However, none came by the time she got the last one in.
"Done. What now?"
"How much time do you think you have?"
"Probably not a lot. "
"Okay, then we'll skip testing. Before you turn on the main power, you'll need to switch on the aux power first. There'll be a dial next to the main power switch, make sure it's set to 'normal'."
"It is."
"Push the dial in."
16 complied, and was rewarded with a couple little lights flickering to life across the board, though notably not the red light she'd seen before.
"Okay, next?"
"How many lights turned on?"
"Twenty five," She replied almost immediately, "mix of yellows and greens, no reds."
"Sounds good. Go for the main power."
16 flicked the main power switch, and another ten green lights flickered to life. The red light from before failed to light still, however now a green light bloomed to life in its place.
"How do we look?"
Samoylov didn't reply right away, letting 16 catch some mumbling from down the hall. Carefully she shut the fuse box and began to retreat out, back onto the main factory floor.
"Good enough. I'll need to get the other board fixed at some point, but I at least have shorter range comms now. Come on back."
She didn't reply. She didn't dare. A little ways away a USEC was stalking through the murking night towards her. Just barely in NODs, she was pretty sure he hadn't seen her as he lacked any night vision, but if he got close enough it may not matter.
16 pressed herself up against the nearby storage tanks, making herself as small and unnoticeable as possible as the armored man walked just a couple feet past her. Not breathing, not blinking, not daring to move at all. Her jaw tucked into her jacket as far as possible and her face turned away. Hoping he wouldn't recognize her amongst the tanks and rubble.
Humans were frightfully good at finding threats in complex environments like this, hardwired by millenia of evolution to find faces and eyes staring at them, so she did her best to hide both from his gaze. Her rifle gripped tight in her left hand, just in case.
The man paused near the entrance to the hall, turning in place to look around before peeking in and flashing a light down the hall.
"HEY! You guys good?!" he called down the hall.
"YEAH!" she heard shouted back, "What's up?!"
"Ah nothin, just thought I heard somethin!" He replied.
"We didn't hear shit, go take your pills man!"
"Yeah man, the voices aren't real!" another voice added in, alongside a loud round of laughter.
"Ah fuck you guys, go to hell!" he shouted back, clearly not really mad with a smile on his face.
"See you there bro!"
The USEC turned away, still smiling and making a leisurely stroll back the way he came. Never knowing 16 was less than four feet away. It took her a little bit to get up, a little longer to get moving. Samoylov didn't comment as she did, but the little red LED staring down at her told her that was probably watching.
"Too close," she muttered, glancing around the corner of the tanks to see the USEC settling back down at his post by Gate 3, his buddy seemingly giving him some shit too.
Having made her way back to the machine shop, 16 now stood face to face with Samoylov.
The man studied her carefully, staring into her eye with a cautious consideration that had her squirming in place. More than once he looked to his screens, reading the spec sheets she'd sent before returning his gaze to her.
"Interesting…" he mumbled.
The man got up and began to move about his shop, gathering a toolbox and a dozen different items from around the shop and moving them to a workbench. 16 followed him with her gaze as best she could.
"Do you consider yourself a trusting individual?" he asked her as he organized his workbench.
"Not really."
"I don't consider myself one either. I've found that there are few on this planet I can truly trust, but many who claim that they are trustworthy. Often those individuals have something to gain from my trust, or something to gain by subverting it."
"Do you trust Ivan?"
"I do well enough. He rarely asks for it, which oddly enough makes me more willing to lend it to him. He's one of only a few though. You say you're not a trusting person, but you must have someone who you do trust."
"Perhaps I do, what of it?"
"Did they earn that trust, or have they simply failed to lose it? Were you once very trusting, and changed, or were you made mistrustful from the start?"
16 didn't answer. She didn't really know how to. Samoylov didn't wait more than a heartbeat for her either, moving right along through his shop, collecting more items and tools, and also relieving her of her toolbelt.
Then he paused at the workbench, set everything down and lit up a cigarette, "I've looked over the spec sheets, to my surprise it's rather understandable at a glance, as if it were designed to be understood by a layman. Unusual for an experimental piece of technology, as you say."
"Okay?" she replied, not sure what else to say to that.
"However, I will actually require the device to make repairs. I also cannot promise I can replace any components that are damaged beyond repair."
"That's fine."
Here it was, the moment she'd been dreading. She saw no real good way out of this, she'd been hoping an idea would come to mind, some way to avoid this next hurdle, but none had presented themselves.
So, with Samoylov's back still turned, M16 used a ginger hand to cautiously remove her good eye. The device was locked behind a plate, but was designed to be removed without necessitating her entire face's deconstruction, so she internally unlocked the eye's restraints and was able to carefully remove it from its socket.
The eye was soft, semi-gelatinous in construction with a solid core at its center. It was odd watching her point of view shift with it, the data still transmitting along a thin cord running from behind it back into her head.
16 flipped up her eyepatch, revealing her bad eye to the world, before internally booting up the second device. The world then became an odd mix of blurry shapes in normal light and the sharp and defined IR view from her good eye as the two signals mixed together in her neural cloud.
Then, with a held breath in her chest, 16 gripped the chord on the good eye, and yanked it out.
Her vision resolved as the good eye was disconnected, the IR images fading out as the fuzzy, near incoherent vision from her bad eye took hold. She then spooled up the cord from the good eye, and hid it and the empty socket it came from behind her eyepatch.
"Here."
16 handed the eye to Samoylov, who gently took the device before setting it down on his table. He made no comment on the eye, nor her altered appearance. As far as she could tell, he hadn't even looked her way. Still, 16 hung over his shoulder, squinting in a vain attempt to see just what it was that he was doing.
Her vision was not nearly sharp enough to tell though, and after a couple minutes she gave up and stumbled around the machine shop, looking for a space to sit down.
There was a chair in the far corner, which she claimed for herself, setting her sks and backpack down beside her and collapsing into it. She tried remaining focussed on the mechanic as he worked, but found doing so to be really quite dull as the minutes ticked on.
"Hmmm…" Samoylov mumbled after a while, "this may take a while, but I should be able to fix this."
"How long?" she asked.
"Not sure, a few hours perhaps. There are a few damaged components on the control board, but diagnostics are claiming it to be fixable with what I have. Getting through the housing may be tough though, at least without tearing it, so we'll see."
"Okay," she huffed, not able to add anything to that. She barely understood the mechanics of her own body beyond what her spec sheets detailed, so it wasn't as if she could offer any tips or comment on the technical aspects.
For the first time since he'd started, Samoylov turned back to look at her. At least that's what she thought he was doing, the shadow in her sight she believed to be him did shift in a way to suggest that. Details of his expression or mood were impossible to make out.
"Feel free to get some rest," he offered.
"No thanks," she replied bluntly.
Samoylov didn't reply, instead turning back to his work.
A few hours could prove problematic, she'd figured it could be that bad however, and had come prepared. Though her internal readouts were still bugged, she'd come to be rather good at judging her own internal state. She could be good for a few more hours, but if she was waiting vigilantly for the next few hours, and then had to fight her way out of the factory and back to the bunker, she may cut it quite close power wise.
It didn't help that she was starting to feel the fatigue creeping in. Simulated or not, the feeling was indicative of her body's state, and in her experience it was best not ignored.
She spent a few more minutes watching Samoylov work, before slumping down into her seat and shutting her eye. After a couple minutes of this, with no apparent reaction from the man, she entered into a short rest cycle, cautious to set a proximity sensor that would wake her just in case.
M16's good eye reluctantly opened as an old familiar chime sounded nearby. A gentle wake up alarm, a simple two tone chime that had gotten her out of bed for a year. Gentle morning light streamed into the room, resulting in the whole space glowing with light.
The warm white sheets made getting up even more difficult, the temptation of another few minutes calling to her. They begged to be exploited, after all, who knew when she'd get the next chance?
But, duty calls. She had siblings to wrangle and chores to do. If she didn't get to it, the rest of the team wouldn't either.
16 made a halfhearted effort to get up, trying to weekly kick the sheets off before she found something snake around her midsection. A strong arm wrapped around her and tugged her right back into the warm, soft blankets and began smothering her in a hug.
"Eh," she protested weekly, "I gotta get up…"
"Just a few more minutes," replied a warm, sleepy voice from somewhere within that warm abyss. Instantly her desire to get to work crumbled, the familiar tones melting her from within her.
"Okay…" she agreed, shutting her eye once more and returning the hug in kind, "for you."
Gently, 16's mind began to come to, her body beginning to stir as she felt the cool air on her skin. She unconsciously began to stretch her limbs a bit, and groggily sat up a little straighter in her chair.
"I see you took up my offer after all," said Samoylov, the voice cutting through her mind like a knife.
16 flailed awake, immediately ready for a fight with her arm darting for the sks by her side while she wildly tried to acquire a target.
Then in a stunned moment, realized that she could see one. Clearly. Not in IR, not fuzzy, but clearly. Samoylov was on the far side of the room, buried in some other task at his computer but having paused his activities to glance her way when he heard her stir. He was quite pale, more than she'd realized, and the deep rings around his eyes a dark purple hue.
She also noted a thin blanket draped across her form, and that her eyepatch had been moved back over her bad eye.
"I-" she started, "wha-, huh?"
Samoylov waved off her concerns with a casual flick of his hand, before swiveling back to his computers, "You were out. I replaced the device for you, figured you wouldn't mind. Thought doing so might help it reintegrate quicker."
16 ran a systems test: the eye was fine, nearly good as new and the best it'd been for a while. She must've been in Level III when he'd installed it, as her systems showed no need for rebooting or recalibration of the eye. She was good to go, and that meant he'd been right. She kind of hated that.
"How did you know how…?" she began.
He pointed over his shoulder to a camera on the ceiling, which watched the doorway and must've been able to see her too. Probably caught her removing the eye as well.
"Don't worry about it. That's all I did to you. I can show you the footage if you're worried about that."
"I-" she began, trying to find some measure of composure, "I'm just surprised, is all."
"Well, there's a lot of that going around these days, you'll get used to it."
"Uh-huh…"
"Is everything working right?"
"So far…" she muttered, experimentally switching through the eye's various modes, Ir and thermal modes flicking on and off. No hitches, software seemed fine, nothing amiss, "you did a good job."
"Thank you. I found it interesting work, a nice change of pace."
"Right. How long was I out?"
Samoylov checked his watch, "I finished about an hour ago, so four hours and a few minutes now."
16 did feel a bit better than before, her neural cloud having gotten some rest which seemed to have done wonders. The aching across her body still remained, the pain in her ankle and back still pulsed angrily, but it was an overall improvement.
"I guess I needed the rest, sorry," she said sheepishly, getting up and beginning to grab her things, "I should probably get going."
"Sure," Samoylov paused whatever he was doing and turned back to look at her, "before you go though, one thing."
"What?" she asked without stopping, slinging on her backpack.
"You're headed back out into the reserve right?"
"Why?"
"I'd like you to deliver something for me, to Ivan."
"Can't you just call him now? Isn't that why I was risking my head?"
Samoylov shook his head, "It isn't safe to do so over an unsecured line, and I don't think Ivan has what he'd need for encryption and decryption. It's essential he sees this, but just as essential that the military or our tourists outside do not. Safer this way."
He pulled an envelope from out of his desk, and offered it to her.
"What's in it for me?"
"Repairs or money, your choice really. I think we both have something to gain from an ongoing partnership, and you could consider this the start of such a thing."
"Right…" she muttered, staring at the envelope.
It was an undeniable fact that she was in bad need of repairs, and Samoylov had proven he could perform them. He'd not given her any reason not to trust him, and while that wasn't enough for her to consider him trustworthy, it was a start. Not only that, she had M4 to consider as well. So, somewhat reluctantly, she took the envelope and tucked it into her backpack.
"I appreciate it. Come back whenever, just call ahead next time. Same frequency we used is fine."
With that, he went back to whatever it was he was doing, effectively leaving M16 alone with her thoughts. In her mind, the jury was still out on him, helpful and seemingly trustworthy, but still quite strange in a way she couldn't quite understand. Still, she could see, and that was a marked improvement from just a few hours ago. Perhaps it was best not to look a gift horse in the mouth.
Grabbing the last of her things, she geared up, opened the heavy door, and stepped back out into the factory without another word exchange between them.