Chapter 3: When Things Go Wrong
The contrast between the cordoned sectors and the rest of West City was huge. While the slums outside were ruinous, dangerous shadows of the city's former glory, the civilian sectors seemed to have successfully regained some of that splendor over the decades. A few skyscrapers had been rebuilt from the ground up and a few others were well on their way. One skyway was even connecting several of the sectors once again. It had been built on the debris of the old one. The streets had been cleaned up and repaired. There was plenty of room and safe housing for the families of the workers who continued to help restore the metropolis. However, hover vehicles, luxury shops and completely renovated neighborhoods were still rare. Most new structures were small, compact homes, all made according to similar designs. Even still, it was a massive improvement over what the citizens had had prior to government intervention; late as it was.
Sector A-7 was one of the newer projects. As such, that square shaped block of the city was still littered with building sites. The sounds of heavy equipment digging, drilling and lifting was a constant. Vile's target was near the northern edge of the sector. The facility had survived the cataclysm that hit nearby. Nevertheless, it had been closed off and was no longer being used. The archives, however, were still active; albeit disconnected from the outside world. It was typical of bureaucracy to take its sweet time when deciding to delete the information in the archives, copy it to a different one or simply move everything of value from the facility to a safer location. Apparently it seemed better to just leave that vault of potentially sensitive information lying around.
It was poorly guarded as no one believed anyone with the resolve to get by a bare minimum of resistance would be interested in the data stored there. Most of the archive had information of the most mundane nature within it. Hunter HQ were among those who doubted that anyone would care what the stock market had been like two days before the colony crashed. Or, more to the point, what a clean-up crew had reported in Central City, after an explosion…
Now that? That was vital to the renegade that had snuck into the sector. He only hoped his skills with electronics were good enough to get past the security systems that had most likely been installed.
Vile crouched behind a stack of crates filled with raw materials and watched the only two guards outside the facility exchange pleasantries. They were slacking off, that much was evident. It seemed every security officer in the sector was at least somewhat laid-back. It was a sharp contrast to those outside or on top of the walls. He had barely found it necessary to stick to various alleyways and other cover to avoid patrols. The former Hunter was pleased to see that both of the men moved away from the front gate to continue their round of the facility's perimeter. It was the perfect chance for the still roughed-up Reploid to slip on in. Fighting them would attract far too much attention, and he honestly doubted he could handle any kind of reinforcements in his current state.
He did not want the opportunity to go to waste, so he swiftly rose to his feet and dashed for the entrance. He stuck to whatever cover he found along the way, as he crossed a small square. None of the engineers, Mechaniloids and workers walking about had noticed him, despite it being the height of noon. Another lucky break. Vile was starting to get suspicious with how much life was throwing him a bone all of a sudden. Once he arrived at the entrance, he reached out for the control panel, ready to see if he'd be able to get through its security system. However, he pressed only a couple of keys when he noticed the door had already been unlocked.
'Strange. Better watch out for more guards on the inside,' procedures must've been changed. Ordinarily, a building like this would have been sealed, with patrols sticking to the outside. Given that the door was unlocked and opened, one or more guards must have entered. Quickly as he could, he opened the large, double, sliding gate and entered. The moment he'd put enough distance between his battered body and the opened barrier, the blast door closed behind him once again.
The main hall was a mess, with none of the lights working. Fortunately, Vile's helmet came installed with a night vision mode. With it active, the renegade was able to make out several trashed booths where visitors would have been able to get any information they needed and had authorization for. Benches, desks, chairs and essentially all the furniture in the hall had fallen over or had been smashed up against the walls. The tiled floor was cracked nearly everywhere, with certain patches having been uprooted entirely after having been hurled across the chamber. The purple Reploid spotted a blueprint of the place on one of the walls near a kiosk. Vile made sure to keep his sensors running at peak capacity – or as high as he could muster – so as not to be caught flatfooted by any guards while checking the map.
The blueprint was intended primarily to show visitors and basic personnel where to go when they had official business to take care of. It showed very little information on any sections of the facility that were of any interest to Vile. Still, restricted sections were clearly marked. Vile quickly noted that an entire block was missing from the second floor, and concluded that that was as good a place to start as any.
The hallways and offices he passed were in as bad a shape as the rest of the place. Vile had been forced to take detours every now and then, as entire corridors had collapsed. Loose power cables were also making it less than prudent to advance down certain routes. Reaching a staircase, the renegade began making his way to the second floor, however, one of those flights nearly collapsed under his weight. The structural integrity of the place had seen better days. He proceeded through a green-colored hallway once he'd reached his target floor. He felt as if he should know the place. It felt familiar, but only in the sense that it reminded him of a place similar to it. So far, so good though, as he had yet to encounter even a hint of guards.
Most, if not all the security cameras in the restricted area were down or destroyed. The single security door sealing off the block from the rest of the facility had been torn down by a nearby power conduit having violently exploded around the time of Eurasia's fall. It had left debris and scorch marks all over, but the path was open. The security section was far more intact than the rest of the facility. Made sense, given that its walls had been considerably reinforced to seal the section off from unauthorized individuals. Some of the office space inside was virtually undisturbed, as if nothing had ever happened outside.
The renegade peeked into one of the larger offices. It was made up of a number of cubicles, each with an almost identical workspace. He heard a soft hum originate from a terminal in the far back of the room. That particular one seemed to still have some kind of power supply keeping it online. Seeing as how he was inside the restricted area, that terminal may have some more information on where to find the archives. Continuing to wander around the building virtually aimlessly was both dangerous and time-consuming. Once he'd approached the active computer, he entered a few commands to bring up a more detailed blueprint of the complex. The dust and grout that had settled on the input device had been disturbed recently, prompting the former Hunter to look around with suspicion.
'Definitely not alone in here...'
It seemed there was only one room left that was still drawing a lot of power from the back-up generator in the basement of the facility. "Bingo," Vile whispered before shutting down the device and rising to his feet. However, once upright, he did not take another step. He waited, listening for something. He was being watched...
The archives were located in a secure vault in the back of a large room. To the center of the chamber was a massive terminal and a collection of ventilators intended to keep temperatures down. The back wall, opposite the entrance into the room, was little more than secure glass paneling that offered a view of the several floors worth of servers. They were the physical storage devices for the archives. A low, electronic hum was persistent and originated from the large servers, loud enough to pierce even the seal of the glass wall.
A single Reploid sat in the large swivel chair in front of the terminal. The device projected several virtual keyboards and had a trackpad for fine manipulation of the archive interface. It was the primary access point to everything stored on the servers. Nana had stumbled upon her target an hour earlier, and had since been trying to hack the security protocols keeping her locked out of the sensitive files. The large viewscreen bathed the nearly empty room in a soft, blue light. That glow alone removed the need for the overhead illumination to work at all. It hadn't been difficult for her to break into the building itself, nor into the office space she knew was supplied by emergency power.
She'd turned that computer off before leaving, right? It hardly mattered.
Despite the relative clear sailing so far, scouring the archives themselves was a different story. Her nerves weren't helping either. She knew she wasn't in that building alone. Every time she heard some dirt tumble from the ceiling in one of the collapsed corridors outside, she'd jump nervously and look over her shoulder at the source of the disturbance. Jumping at shadows. Making rookie mistakes while typing away. She was nervous alright. She had every right to be. If she was caught in there? She didn't want to think about that.
It took her at least another half hour before she finally managed to break through the security measures blocking her progress. An overview of the files stored within the archive appeared on screen. Much of the data had been corrupted due to how long the infrastructure had gone without any kind of maintenance or because the relevant servers had been destroyed in the devastation. As reinforced as this room was, it was not like a highly protective bomb shelter. The rest was encrypted, but that was no problem for her. She would merely have to download everything she could, and get the rest of the work done in a safer, more legal location.
The files were barely organized in a coherent fashion, but Nana still managed to track down some entries from Maverick Hunter HQ, including some personnel rosters. The tags she needed would undoubtedly be in there. But, just so that she did not miss anything, she began downloading all, even loosely related entries into the mass storage device she had been carrying with her. No larger than a datapad, it would do the trick just fine.
It was indicative of the utter chaos the Eurasia Incident had caused, that even very recent files were still sometimes forwarded to this broken-down facility for safekeeping. As if decades of rebuilding still hadn't been enough to sort out the crippling, organizational devastation the catastrophe had brought about. She would have likely been able to trace those same files from somewhere else, but she would have never been able to get through proper, modern Hunter cyber-security. That had made West City her best bet.
Another gasp escaped her lips when she thought she had heard noises behind her. A glance over her shoulder at the door revealed she was just being paranoid. That did not stop her from biting her lower lip in a tick that had become more and more of a trademark.
The door into the room had broken down long ago, so the light of the large viewscreen poured out even into the corridor outside. That made it easy for anyone to notice the room was being used. She was a sitting duck in there, with no place to hide. She found herself staring at the progress bar that had popped up once she'd started copying over data. However, no amount of willing made it go any faster, and it remained at only eight percent. In her hoping for time to pass more quickly, though, she failed to notice the distinct sound of Reploid footsteps behind her until it was too late. The sound of a buster activating and powering-up caused her eyes to widen in fear. Those arm-mounted cannons fired energy spheres capable of inflicting significant damage to human and Reploid alike.
"Put down that device, and move away from the terminal."
Nana's body stiffened completely at the sound of that voice. Her mind began to race instantly, hoping to find some way to get out of that situation. She set the storage device down on the terminal's dashboard, and swiveled the chair to face her would-be captor. She slowly got to her feet, slender arms rising up into the air and guiding cream-colored palms to the back of her head. A total of three Reploids stood before her, their markings identifying them as Maverick Hunters. Each aimed a weapon at a vital point on her body.
The Hunter that had spoken up tilted his head slightly to the one who stood in the middle. "She looks like a logistics model," his attention returned fully to her. "Move away from the terminal," he repeated as he motioned with his buster for her to take a few steps to the side; away from the expensive hardware she had so obviously been using.
"Sensors have picked up another intruder, sir. Team B is heading for it," the Hunter on the other side of the middle one spoke up next. He deactivated his weapon as Nana was clearly not a direct threat to them. "Who's your accomplice?"
"A-Accomplice? I don't have one," her soft-spoken response contained a mixture of confusion and hesitation. She had to calm herself, if she kept her wits about her, she might be able to find a means of escape. She'd been through much worse when Silver Horn had captured and tortured her back on Giga City. Compared to that torment, the backwater Hunters before her were nothing. She steeled herself and glared at the nearest operative.
While the other two continued to deal with Nana, the sergeant of the unit approached the monitors. He had remained silent so far, but he glanced over the files she was currently copying, which was all he needed to piece together what she had been doing. "Why were you going through Maverick Hunter files stored in the archives? These are old personnel files. Looking for someone?" the Reploid's dark blue armor possessed the golden trimmings that indicated his rank to those knowledgeable. The male had two energy sabers attached to his belt. Judging by his confident attitude, he knew exactly how to use them.
"I know what this looks like, but I was left with no other choice. I have reason to believe there's a traitor in your ranks, but your superiors refused to hear me out!" Nana proclaimed, remaining defiant, though that might not play to her advantage. Still, lies were only going to get her into more trouble, so honesty really did appear to be the best policy.
"A traitor?" the sergeant's emerald eyes narrowed almost viciously at that implication. "You're Nana. From Giga City. Correct?" he crossed his arms over his chest as he half turned from the viewscreen to the female operator.
"You know her, sir?" one of his subordinates looked at his sergeant, before turning his gaze to the floor as something else caught his attention. The soft chatter coming from his earpiece implied correspondence coming his way. He reached for his ear to listen closely, with that brief exchange temporarily putting a stop to Nana's questioning.
"Sir, they've located the other intruder. He's armed and dangerous. They're moving in to apprehend him. Orders?"
"Shoot on sight. To kill. He's trespassing and unlikely to come quietly," the sergeant's reply was immediate, with not a second thought given to the order.
"To kill, sir? But..." The Hunter hesitated for a few moments. He did not seem to want to relay the rash command, but eventually nodded as he relented. "Of course, sir."
Nana didn't know what it was about the sergeant's stare, but the entire situation did not sit well with her. The longer she studied him, the bigger the sense she got that there was more going on in that facility than met the eye. That only made her fear for her life all the more.
Vile walked out of the office, the sound of his booted feet stepping across the metal floor echoing down the corridor. He was being cautious, as he had learned to keep a level-head, even when he knew he was being stalked. Slowly, he looked to both his sides, trying to pinpoint who was following him. He continued down the hall, his single red eye glowed slightly as he inconspicuously activated the Front Runner. The weapon slowly hummed to life, but only the most observant would be able to tell, given the damage the weapon had sustained, and his general lack of energy reserves. The shoulder cannon remained tilted diagonally upwards, in standby mode to aid his attempt to not prematurely spring a trap.
The former Hunter forced a half-broken sliding door open and walked out into a small hall. He hadn't found his goal yet, so he couldn't afford leaving prematurely. This made confrontation his only option. The hall had little cover, so he would have precious little means of protecting himself. Rather casually, he descended one flight of stairs into the large, steel chamber that seemed to serve as a hub of sorts for a variety of corridors. Vile took note of the long, rectangular, stone flower boxes that stretched along one of the walls. They looked sturdy enough to manage some crossfire and keep him safe. Without any of his weapons other than a barely charged shoulder cannon, and without his jet boots working, he felt as though the slightest amount of resistance could prove too much for him to handle.
He had to play it smart.
The renegade had barely taken two steps beyond the center of the room before he heard the sound of a weapon discharging. Someone was armed with a buster, and had fired a yellow orb of abrasive energy at him. Vile rolled aside and used the limited functionality of his boots to boost for cover behind a box. The bottom of his boots flared as he was propelled with greater speed than his legs could carry him. A single, agile vault was all he needed to find some shelter from the incoming fire.
"He's right there! Keep him pinned down!"
Vile gritted his teeth behind the protective metal of his helmet. His hand gripped his shoulder cannon and leveled it to point straight ahead. That manual action primed it for use, with its trigger being nothing more than a silent command from his mind. 'Hunters... Since when do they shoot on sight? I used to get told off for that!' Vile was beyond intimately acquainted with just how much Hunter HQ frowned upon such immediate displays of potentially lethal force.
Several more buster shots hit the solid cover, violently sending small chips of stone and gravel flying with every impact. Speed was of the essence, as one of the Hunters had begun charging up his buster. A charged shot would demolish his meager cover, exposing him to further fire from the other assailants. He leapt from cover the moment the Hunters paused their barrage to inspect the situation. He fired a deep blue sphere of energy from his cannon at the nearest target. The Reploid went down instantly, critically damaged as the blast had penetrated his chest armor and fried numerous vital systems.
The remaining four opened fire, but didn't manage to line up their aim properly. The renegade used his boots to dash straight for the wall opposite of where he had been waiting. At the very last minute, he jumped as high as his synthetic muscles could manage. His hand grabbed hold of a loose piece of plating the instant he could reach. With a decent handhold, it became trivial to plant his boots against the smooth wall and use the surface to kick off and propel himself towards the center of the battlefield. With height and distance in his favor, the experienced war machine flared his dash boots in mid-air.
It gave him all the momentum he needed to clear one of the Hunters that had been taking shots at Vile from the higher vantage point of the above balcony. The Hunter had been taken by complete surprise by the display of mobility, and did not have nearly enough time to turn around and respond to the threat. A well-placed shot severed his buster arm, after which Vile's right palm curled its fingers around the edges of the injured Reploid's face. With a powerful roar, that mechanical skull was slammed into the wall behind the two. The resounding impact easily crushed vital systems, and the robotic body went limp as it slid to the ground.
Any praise Vile planned to give himself was cut short. A buster shot hit his back, causing him to stumble and nearly topple. His armor had protected him from serious harm, and allowed him to quickly regain his balance. Vile now set his sights on the origin of the attack and opened fire. The virtual HUD displayed by the inside of his helmet's cracked visor warned him of his dwindling energy levels with every discharge of the Front Runner. An unflattering curse flowed in whisper from the Reploid's throat as he was forced to take three shots – two more than he would have liked – before finally connecting with his target.
The Hunter that had scorched his back went down.
'Two more. Come on, body. Hold on...' synthesized adrenaline flowed through the renegade. It forced his generator to work overtime to provide his body with the endurance needed to pull through.
"Sir! It's Vile! I repeat, it's Vile! We need backup over here! Now!" The Hunter sergeant that had been leading the second team inside the archives desperately called for aid. He had just witnessed his last remaining subordinate get taken out by the dangerous fugitive, making him Vile's last enemy standing.
The former Maverick Hunter began to sprint for him, unwilling to use his dash boots to close the gap more quickly. Vile swayed his body left and right, dodging one buster shot. Then two. Then three. The closer he got, the worse the sergeant's aim became as panic took hold. Vile's path took him directly along a pile of rubble, out of which he yanked a heavy, metal rod. By the time the sergeant leveled his buster for a fourth shot, it was too late. Vile roared and brought the bar down in a wild swing. The impact was more than enough to cripple the operative, forcing him to his knees. He barely uttered a syllable before a plasma shot from his supposed prey's shoulder cannon seared a path through his abdomen and demolished the vital systems there.
Vile panted as he could feel how drained his body was by that point. 'How did they detect me? I was so cautious!'
He gazed at his latest bit of handiwork long enough to make sure he had put down the Hunter team indefinitely. His eyes were then cast up at one of the cameras peeking out from beneath the ceiling. He had thought the archive's own surveillance systems to be inactive, and yet a small blinking light in the corner of the device informed him otherwise.
'Silent alarm that activated the cameras and some kind of signal? How did it trigger?'
Vile couldn't stand around and think about it any longer. Time was of the essence. None of it sat well with the purple Reploid, but answers would have to wait. More Hunters were inside the building. The sergeant's request for immediate aid revealed as much. He had to assume that communique had gotten through, and even more security was going to swarm the installation before long.
Throwing caution to the wind, Vile tapped into the final reserves he had left and activated his dash boots. He raced through the hallways to get to the archives. He had to find what he'd come there for, or it'll have all been for nothing!
"Sir! It's Vile! I repeat, it's Vile! We need backup over here! Now!"
"Sir, team beta's being slaughtered out there! I could barely make out the transmission, but they're requesting immediate backup!" the young Hunter's voice was dripping with eagerness to go help out his comrades. However, the sergeant seemed less than responsive.
"Sir? They said it's Vile. We need to call in reinforcements."
It was almost as if the sergeant couldn't care less what was happening to his fellow Hunters. Instead, he had spent the entire time looking over the information that Nana had been studying. The progress bar indicating how much of that information had already been copied to her external storage device had been hidden behind other elements of the terminal's user interface, which was the only reason it hadn't been canceled yet. Nana knew this, and hoped it would continue to go unnoticed until she could slip away somehow.
Finally, the sergeant relented and responded to the urging of his two subordinates. "Fine. We'll head down there. Terminate the Maverick operator," his command was swift and sudden, taking not only Nana by surprise, but also the two Hunters.
"Terminate? But sir, procedure is to take her in for questioning and analysis. We don't know if she's Maverick yet," the youngest of the two argued passionately.
"We can't go executing captives on the spot. Sekter, cuff her," the order from the other Hunter fell on deaf ears. Nana screamed as she realized why the younger Hunter had stopped moving.
The sergeant had drawn one of his sabers and had – in the blink of an eye – closed the distance between himself and the rookie. A single lunge had been all that was required to pierce the Reploid's main power generator, killing him instantly. He dropped to his knees as the life faded from his eyes, eventually collapsing before Nana. She'd seen plenty of death on Giga City, but nowhere near enough for her to get used to the sight. Synthetic blood and other liquids coursing through a Reploid's body spilled from the sizzling wound. She crawled back, her breathing labored as she tried to find a way out of that situation.
"Sergeant, what are you-?!" the other Hunter did not fare any better. While he lifted his buster pistol to take aim, he found he had nothing with which to grab hold of the weapon any longer. A quick slice had severed his hand at the wrist. His scream was cut short when a flurry of slashes cut through his frame. He joined his colleague on the metal floor of the archive room, dead.
Nana screamed again, figuring all she could do was hope someone friendly was going to hear the noise. She continued to try and back away from the sergeant. "You're no Maverick Hunter! Wh-Who are you? Are you the one whose behind R's death?!"
"You're pretty defiant for someone whose about to die. Nana, was it?" the sergeant's eyes began glowing a dark red instead of the softer blue they had been before. He extended his arm at the operator, bringing the tip of one of his green energy sabers barely an inch from her right eye. The smallest of motions would be required to thrust the weapon through her skull. "You've seen too much here. Not that it matters. I'm under orders to terminate you anyway."
"Aren't you forgetting something?"
The traitor's eyes widened at the sound of a voice behind him. Showing the same speed and reflexes from before, he instantly turned to face the source. However, before he could do anything more, an energy blast collided with his chest, sending him crashing through the glass wall that shielded the humming servers from the outside. A scream was chillingly absent, implying the initial impact alone had been enough to either knock him out cold, or kill him outright. After the shattering of reinforced glass, less than a second of silence passed when a loud, metallic clang echoed from a floor below them. The traitorous Hunter had hit the grated walkways of one of the server corridors and now lay motionless.
Nana had covered her face when shots and glass had begun to go flying. But, as the noise began to settle, she lowered her arms and realized who had "saved" her.
"Vile..." She concluded aloud. She rose to her feet and took a few steps back until she felt the terminal behind her, blocking her path.
The purple Maverick entered the chamber proper. His hand released the still-smoldering barrel of his shoulder cannon, which tilted back into its diagonal standby mode. "Don't start panicking or screaming, woman. I'm not interested in hurting you," Vile's voice went from serious to slightly amused as he proceeded. "Unless you get in my way, of course," he was taking pleasure in intimidating her as he did. However, Nana did not miss how battered and bruised he appeared to be. Even the poorly lit glance she had given him revealed damage to his body that was much older than the fight he'd just been in. No wonder she had heard he was dead, he'd been walking around like that!
Vile passed by her, not granting her more than a single glance, though it was one that slipped down her entire body. He recognized her as being an operator, so he didn't seem to think she was a threat to him. He halted by the edge of the now-broken, glass wall, his footsteps generating a cracking sound as he crushed shards underfoot. He peered over the edge and down at his latest victim. The sergeant – or whatever he was – had fallen through the first floor grating and lay on the walkway one floor down. A painful scorch mark mired his chest where the blast had hit. He didn't seem to be moving, and Vile didn't want to waste more time going down there to check for vitals.
Finally, he turned back to Nana and approached her. "What the hell are you doing here?" his body towered over hers, and he had no compunction against getting right up in her face. "You set off the silent alarm, didn't you? I thought you operators were supposed to be so damn smart?" His voice had lowered from a tone of anger to subdued threat.
Nana had initially looked away as Vile got close to her, but the mention of an alarm caused her to look up at him. She could only see her own reflection in his visor, perhaps making the situation even worse. The crack in the black, reinforced plastic made Vile come across as even more unstable than he already did. "Silent alarm? I-... Oh blast it..." Nana exhaled in exhaustion as she realized she'd underestimated the amount of security measures that had still been active and monitored. She must have set something off when she started fiddling with the computer on the second floor.
"If you're here for the archives, they're still cracked wide open. You don't need me. So... Just let me go," Nana instantly turned to bartering. By now, the copying of the data must've been completed. If she could just snatch up that storage device, she might be able to make it out of there in one piece. But, somehow, she didn't think Vile would take kindly to the surprising defiance in her blue eyes.
"No shit, I don't need you," Vile then followed Nana's gaze to the terminal and back again. She could tell by his body language that he grew suspicious. He approached the terminal and pressed a few keys to bring up the progress bar, which showed one-hundred percent completion. "But I could use you..."
Nana could feel her synthetic heart beating rapidly in her chest. What was that madman going to do?
"You know what you're doing here, right? Get back in this chair and find me a specific report stored on these servers," his hand motioned from her to the chair. "Move it!"
Nana remained defiant though, despite being startled by his raised voice. "Why should I help you? You're the worst kind of Reploid. You're just as likely to kill me after I do what you say as that sergeant was just now," she had learned from her experiences with Silver Horn. She would never back down from a Maverick again. People like Vile couldn't be allowed to just walk all over everyone else.
However, her courage was put to the test the moment she felt Vile's fingers curl tightly around her throat. He applied more than enough pressure to constrict the flow of impulses from her core processor to the rest of her body. She felt her legs dangle off the floor, and she kicked in fear and frustration, trying desperately to free herself from what amounted to a vice around her neck.
"Don't tempt me, woman," a single red eye flared up behind his visor. He forced her into the chair and kicked it to spin it around so it faced the viewscreen.
Nana coughed as she held onto her throat, cursing under her breath at how everyone kept using her for their own selfish gains. Her voice was a little strained as she spoke up. "I- I'm going to need more details if this is to not take too much time."
"It's about an explosion in Central City. I want the reports made by the first responder, Maverick Hunter clean-up crew. About two decades ago."
Nana's hands shook a bit as she began the search. However, before she could properly input a command, an explosion rocked the facility. More security was en route, apparently having forced their way through a different passage that had previously been blocked off by debris. The distracting interlude made the operator realize something, though.
"Wait! I downloaded all the records of all entries related to the Maverick Hunters onto my external storage device," she proclaimed, nodding in the direction of the small gadget that rested atop the terminal's dashboard. She knew she was revealing the fruits of her hard-earned labor to one of the most wanted men on the planet, but it was her only chance of getting out of there!
Vile had looked down the exit corridor for a few moments, but turned his attention back to her as she spoke. He remained silent as he studied her closely, looking deep into her eyes as if to discern whether or not she was telling the truth.
Time was ticking.
"Fine. But if you're lying, I will throw you off the nearest high-rise," he reached for the device, but found Nana beating him to it. She held it close to her chest.
"No! The data's still encrypted. It was the only way I could copy it quickly enough," the operator could see the anger welling up in her captor, so she quickly proceeded with her gamble-of-a-plan. "But, I can decrypt it! Provided you take me with you. I don't know why, but I don't think that sergeant was the only Hunter under orders to kill me. He also ordered to have you shot on sight, despite protocol. Something is very wrong here, and I want to find out what," she had turned her gaze at the floor, her bangs covering her eyes to help hide the shame she felt for making a deal with the likes of Vile.
"You want answers? Even if it means helping me? The worst kind of Reploid?" Vile couldn't help but chuckle. However, he had no idea how to decrypt data. For all he knew, she might have the means to do some repairs on his body as well. He didn't really have much of a choice, just like she didn't. "Fine. Deal. I'll get you out of here alive. We're running out of time, you better keep up," the renegade ordered as he turned around and began running at a solid, rushed pace. He only hoped the operator could keep up, because he certainly didn't feel like dragging luggage around with him...
Nana released a sigh of relief, but very quickly got out of the chair and chased after him. She was in a world of trouble now. Cooperating with a wanted criminal, who just now had shot and killed several Maverick Hunters. But it was her only chance. If she was caught by the Hunters, she would likely disappear without a trace. If she stayed there, she'd never be able to escape. So, her only option? Trusting Vile, of all people…