Chapter 5: A Time To Rest

Inside the archive's vault, ventilators were still hard at work keeping all the hardware cool. The access terminal hadn't been shut down in Vile and Nana's rush to escape. As a result, the viewscreen the operator had been using still displayed a brief summary of the records she had copied from the server onto her storage device. Beyond the shattered glass paneling in the back of the room, the Maverick Hunter sergeant's body still lay on the grid walkways above the lowest level of server racks.

Suddenly, the Reploid jerked awake brusquely. His eyes widened with the shock of a sudden reactivation. His systems came back online one by one, returning his senses to him. As quickly as he could manage – which wasn't all that fast – he sat up. The motion put a strain on the painful scorch mark across his chest. His frame had been further damaged by the fall, but all things considered, it could have been far worse. It seemed the Reploid was more heavily armored than he appeared to be. He clutched his injury with a single palm, a hiss of pain and frustration slipping from his lips. There was anger in his eyes as he got up off the floor.

'Bastard got me with a cheap shot...' carefully, he moved the palm of his hand away from his injury to inspect it. The disorientation accompanying his jarring awakening began to fade, and memories of what precisely had transpired returned to him in full. He stretched his back to work out a kink, while a single, deep breath gave him some focus back.

A bright, blue light began to envelop the Reploid's body. There was no further need for him to hide his true form. He needed to act quickly to contain the consequences of his failure. His eyes dulled before changing hues to a deep crimson. His entire body began to change as he turned off the Copy Chip installed within him. The shift was smooth but surprisingly fast. By the time the light faded, all signs of the sergeant had vanished, having been replaced by the frame of a very different Reploid.

He was slightly shorted than the sergeant, with armor as black as night. Details across it and the cloth-like undershirt were a dark shade of green, adding some highlight to him. His knees, elbows and shoulders elongated into short but sharp talons. Those were bound to give him additional options should a brawl get dirty. A fluorescent, green orb with a yellow-white core was embedded in his sternum, though it and some of the armor surrounding it, showed the damage that Vile's shot had caused. The helmet protecting a slender, slightly tanned face, consisted of three cylinders, joined together and pulled back into silver-tipped needles. A few bangs escaped the confines of the helmet and revealed his hair color to be an almost metallic grey.

His set of crimson eyes gave the room a quick once-over to make sure there had been no witnesses to his metamorphosis. The surveillance systems inside the server room were also down, so he didn't have any tracks to cover there. He couldn't have tapes of him revealing his involvement and his status as a new generation Reploid circulating, after all.

Instinctively, his hands reached for his belt. The absence of one of his energy sabers reminded him how the impact had disarmed him as well. He took the remaining weapon and sheathed it for safer storage atop a special backpack strapped to his shoulder blades. Once he spied the other one a few steps away from him, he was able to finish re-arming himself. By that point, his diagnostics returned with the report that no internal systems had been seriously damaged. His armored plating had absorbed nearly all of the hit, though he still realized he had been quite lucky.

The new generation Reploid raised his left arm to chest-height. A small panel that was incorporated into the limb's armor opened up, revealing a miniature monitor underneath. He tapped a few buttons in an attempt to establish a stable communications link with an external receiver. It took far longer than it ordinarily would have due to a massive security protocol making sure the exchange would remain as private as possible. It took some time for the link to be accepted on the other end, but once it was, the screen lit up to reveal a room darkened by closed windows and heavy shadows.

The silhouette of a large man could barely be made out against that dark backdrop. He was seated in an armchair of some kind, most likely at a desk. Additional scrambling had rendered it impossible to make out any details of the man's appearance, and his voice had been deformed by another device as he spoke up. Whoever was pulling the black-framed Reploid's strings was not leaving anything to chance.

"Report."

"I was able to reach the archives undercover as a Maverick Hunter, but there were some... complications," he chose his words cautiously so as to not incur his client's wrath too quickly.

"Complications? Did you deal with them accordingly?" the shadow's barely intelligible outline of his eyes turned to slits as annoyance was evident in both his body language and his electronic voice.

"Not exactly. An unforeseen factor caught me off-guard. However, you'll be interested to learn what that factor was."

"Oh?" leather creaked as the shape leaned back and the hints of an elbow came to rest on one of the arms of the chair. His weight shifted as he seemed to make himself comfortable. "For the sake of your pay, Spectrum, I hope it'll lighten my mood," the deep voice contained all the signs of pending frustration, curbed only by curiosity.

"Vile. He was here, in the facility. Looking for something," Spectrum began to walk back towards the ledge he had tumbled down from. His metallic steps echoed out of the server room and into the vault as a whole. "He may be looking into his past. Could he be onto something?"

"I highly doubt he has the mental capacities to do anything beyond firing that cannon of his. What about this 'Nana' from Giga City? Did you deal with her?" the shadowy Reploid laced his fingers together, leaving his index fingers stretched as he brought them up to his chin.

"She was here. She had already tracked down the records you were afraid she'd find," the inflection in his voice implied an obvious 'and' continuation of that sentence, but he hesitated. His pride had taken a rather serious blow by him having fallen prey to something he should have easily heard coming. "Vile stepped in before I was able to dispatch her."

"It's very unlike you to fail so miserably," an awkward, albeit brief silence descended on the conversation, but the man on the other end of the line quickly continued. "Make sure there's no trace left behind of the records, as well as you and your escaped preys' presence in that vault," at that point, the palms of the Reploid's hands returned to the top of his desk as he leaned forward. "And if you think you'll be seeing your full pay after this fiasco, you're even more delusional than my former partner. We shall see if your teammates can do a better job than you." Even though the Reploid kept his cool, it was painfully obvious that he was less than pleased with the results of Spectrum's mission.

"What?! They're not suited for this task. I handle subterfuge!" Spectrum protested, though he was quickly silenced by his employer slamming a single fist on his desk and rising up from his seated position. The camera the man was using was motorized and automatically adjusted its angle to keep its owner in frame properly.

"Than you should have acted more swiftly and done your job properly! Now you will do as you're told and remember your place! You may be nothing more than hired guns, but I still know who you are and where to find you. If you value your reputation and freedom, you will obey!"

Spectrum winced at the scolding and clenched his teeth as he suppressed his own anger at being preached to like a disobedient child. His employer was fortunate that the check attached to this ticket was substantial enough for the mercenary to swallow his pride and go along with it.

"Yes. Sir," that final utterance came with a significant delay. Soon after, the line was cut, the monitor turned off and the panel lowered to safely store the communication device in the Reploid's forearm.

The mercenary proceeded to reach around his back and grabbed hold of a small device attached to his belt. An obvious explosive, he primed it and affixed it to one of the server racks to his left.

'I'll get you for this disgrace, Vile. I swear it.'

With that oath declared, the slender spy vanished into the shadowy corridors of the facility, having jumped back up through the hole in the glass wall above. Meanwhile, a tiny, red light flashed with the same rhythm as the beat of its internal countdown.

"What a mess... I can't believe we lost eight hunters to them. One of them was just an operator too."

Two Maverick Hunters had entered the vault to inspect the scene in the hopes of finding clues as to what Vile had been doing there, and where he could have potentially disappeared off to. It was as of yet unclear who had been his accomplice. Reinforcements were on the way, but most were still preoccupied with scouring West City in case the duo hadn't transferred far.

The hunter that had spoken up walked towards the hole in the glass wall and peeked down into the server room. The other approached one of the destroyed Reploids and began inspecting the damage to the frame after crouching down to a suitable height. "Odd. This damage wasn't done by any ranged weapon. Both of these hunters were cut down by an energy saber," the hunter was thinking out loud for the benefit of his partner, while he traced one of the wounds with a single digit.

"So Vile used a saber on them. What's your point?" the other simply shrugged off the observation as he turned around to face his comrade.

"Vile never used sabers, at least not with this degree of skill. I don't think he's even trained to use them. None of the other hunters reported he had been armed with one. And the other suspect was an operator. They usually don't even receive training in the use of a buster pistol, let alone something as dedicated as a saber," the more experienced investigator shook his head and cast a glance up at the other. "This ain't adding up."

"So there was a third infiltrator?"

"Hm. Radio it in. This one might still be on the premises," the younger hunter nodded in acknowledgment and reached for the communication device installed over his right ear. Before he could establish a link, though, he noticed a soft, continuous beeping sound coming from behind him.

"Do you hear something?" he turned around and looked down into the server room a second time. With a hand securely planted against the window's frame, he was able to lean over a bit more in an attempt to identify the source of it. He soon noticed how the noise's frequency and pitch increased, but by the time his eyes fell on the blinking, red light, it was too late.

The resulting blast took out the entire vault, causing irreparable damage to the information stored within the archives. The server rooms, the terminal, it was all wiped out in a single, violent explosion. All around the facility civilians, hunters and security personnel got the shock of a lifetime at the sound, with all of them scrambling to respond accordingly.

Spectrum looked up at the smoke that began to billow from the flank of the structure. He had tied up that loose end, which meant he could make his way back. As he turned around, the mercenary transformed into your everyday, generic Reploid, allowing him to perfectly blend in with the crowds passing by the alleyway he'd been watching from. And just like that, he was gone.

A small, dark room was briefly illuminated by two bright streams of light darting into a transfer disk on the floor. The energy coalesced in two, separate pylons behind the disk before intricate software kicked in to start reconstructing the inbound Reploids. Before long, both Vile and Nana had rematerialized. Now sensing that the chamber was occupied, the automatic lighting came on, with an overhead bar humming to life. The room contained nothing beyond a wall-mounted control panel and the piece of machinery the two were standing on. The walls, floors and ceiling were composed of featureless, steel panels.

Vile looked back over his shoulder at the transfer pad as he stepped down from it, following Nana's lead. He didn't recognize the type. It seemed much more modern and advanced than the one they had used to escape West City, or that were commercially available for that matter.

"Come on, you're basically standing in the closet. Through here," the operator had walked up to the only door out of the cramped room and pressed a switch to open up the barrier.

The renegade followed the female Reploid through, flexing his shoulders and legs a little with the first few steps he took. He always felt awkward after undergoing a rather rough transfer. The damage to his body wasn't doing him any favors, either. After passing through – the door sliding shut behind him again – he found himself in a larger room. Rectangular in shape, it stretched out in front of him, with two doorways into small rooms off to his right. While those passages were open, the purple-framed Reploid noticed the door frames appeared to be rather bulky. He could only assume they likely hid thick blast doors that could seal off sections of what appeared to be an apartment of some kind. However, the contents suggested it was more of a workplace than somewhere to live.

The larger room couldn't be more than fifty square meters in total, making it rather busy and cluttered as all manner of furniture had been forced into it. A table, closet, electronic bookcase, file cabinets as well as a significant computer setup on the wall opposite the transfer room. Additional, portable power generators also hummed away in corners of the room, powering the abundance of equipment, as well as a souped up transfer pad. The regular power grid wouldn't be able to handle some of the gear in here without the walls having to be torn open. The table in the room was covered in various documents, books and datapads, all of which hinted at an ongoing investigation of some sort.

The ceiling was at an incline to follow a sloping roof section, which put the only source of natural light in the hands of a couple of small roof windows. The angle wasn't steep enough to prevent some view of what seemed to be a bustling city and the reflection of a massive expanse of ocean water in windows lining a nearby skyscraper. The hardware setup on the other end of the room was some kind of high-tech workstation. An exceedingly large monitor hung from a reinforced frame on the wall, and was lined on either side by a slew of smaller monitors, some of which had control panels attached to indicate they may be dedicated to a specific piece of hardware. Each of the screens had been switched off, even though the terminal still hummed from some base activity.

As he approached the broad console, his eyes fell on one of the black canvases and he realized that he was in even worse shape than he had been earlier that same day. He only had enough energy left for critical and basic systems, having spent everything else on getting his jet boots to come to life. He was well and truly disarmed now, as even the Front Runner would not work for free.

"Welcome to my humble abode," Nana smirked slightly as she walked further into the room with the renegade. She proceeded to sit down in the rotating, comfortable chair that had been installed right in front of the terminal. A long, heavy sigh passed her lips while she tried to settle a little. The euphoria of having escaped that hairy situation alive was distracting her from the predicament she now found herself in. After all, she was a wanted woman now.

"And where is that 'abode' supposed to be at?" Vile didn't seem to know what privacy was, as he had taken to wandering around the room. He peeked through the nearest of the two doorways to find a narrow room that seemed to hold some facilities to eat and rest. It seemed the place was fitted to serve both humans and Reploids, as indicated by the presence of a refrigerator. But is also a container for housing energen crystals; the fuel source on which Reploids operated.

"A small apartment in central Giga City. This place is neutral grounds; it'll be harder for them to track us. We're actually in a pretty open spot right now. They won't really think about looking here for us," she crossed her legs and folded her hands in her lap.

Her response's implications didn't immediately sink in with the renegade as he walked into the 'kitchen'. He spied another room in the back, but realized what she'd said before he could take his nosiness on over to it. "Giga City?"

Nana nodded with an even wider smile than had already been tugging at her lips. She was proud of the place, and the fact that she'd transferred them halfway across the globe with a nigh untraceable signal. It was no small feat, giving her every right to be a little smug.

"Giga City's got tight security, doesn't it? Can only be entered and exited through official transfer pads. If you don't have the proper credentials, you ain't getting in. How'd ya pull that off?" he had taken up position in one of the doorways and proceeded to lean against its frame to take some weight off of the leg that was in the worst condition.

"Relax. I know this place inside and out. My module can receive and send anyone from anywhere to this place, as long as you know the proper passcodes and procedures. It essentially behaves like an official access point."

"And how exactly are you getting your hands on those codes?" The renegade's red eye narrowed behind the visor that hid his features – or the absence thereof – completely. "And just who are you?"

"My name's Nana, I'm an operator and the com-, former, communications and logistics expert for Giga City Central. Until very recently, I was in charge of the restoration efforts for the floating city," her introduction came with an uncomfortable shift in her posture, as the purple Reploid's steely stare started to get to her a little.

Vile scoffed and shook his head. "I see security's still top notch around here. Incompetent idiots. You got access to just about anything ya need and they don't even bother keeping tabs on you?" he had pushed off of the door frame by that point and wandered across the chamber to the bookcase right by the seated operator. "What do you mean by former, anyway? You messed up so badly in the archives that they'll know who it was?" as he questioned her further, he peeked over some of the titles lining the shelves. His curiosity was minimal, but he needed something to stave off the boredom, now that energy shots had stopped flying overhead.

"Former as in 'used to be'," Nana did not swivel her chair to face him entirely. His presence was intimidating enough without her having to stare up at him. She hid her fear well, though, relying on their earlier bargain to keep her alive in the presence of the violent criminal. "I resigned from my position a few days ago, when all of this began. I couldn't risk exposing any of my friends and colleagues to the dangers that would be involved in my investigation."

"How sweet of you."

Nana's eyes narrowed into a slight glare at Vile's condescension. "It was safer for me too. If I have no ties to anything anymore, it'll be that much harder to track me down," she watched the other Reploid reach for a book on the maintenance of transfer modules.

"How'd you get your hands on this place then? Doesn't look like something an official would decide to live in," Vile returned the book he'd taken to its spot on the shelf; he hadn't understood a word of all that technical jargon in it. He then idly sauntered on to a small control panel attached to the wall beside the bookcase.

"I called in a favor from an old friend. This used to be his place before he moved to the research laboratories in the forest," she cut herself off from saying more when she noticed Vile beginning to reach out for that panel. "Don't touch that, please. It controls all of the security systems. I made sure that any transmission in and out of this place are jammed and scrambled. It'll be almost impossible for anyone to trace back anything we do on the terminal to us. But, it's rather sensitive and..." her voice trailed off, afraid she was going to insult him by insinuating he was going to mess with something he wouldn't understand.

She wasn't wrong.

"Now you know who I am. And I already know who you are," she was starting to realize again that she was in a life-threatening situation. Her voice stressed that one word, indicating she knew what he had done and what he was capable of. If Vile decided to go haywire on her, she wouldn't be able to stop him. She had a buster pistol on a shelf by her terminal, and another stashed elsewhere in the apartment, but neither were close enough for her to take advantage of.

Vile grumbled at her tone of voice, though he took a single step towards the table before leaning back against it with his rear. Two palms reached down to clutch the ends of the steel furniture. "Nice to know my reputation precedes me," he paused briefly as he seemed to note the change in her mood. "Relax. If I wanted to kill ya, I'd have done so already. I got better things to do than waste energy on operators."

"Energy you don't have a lot of anymore," the operator's response came quick. Until that point, it hadn't dawned on her that he was in as bad a shape as he was. She had noticed the damage, sure, but everything had been moving so fast that she only now recalled how the legendarily dangerous Vile had struggled to overcome climbing an elevator shaft. She needed his help, and he needed hers. She could easily do her job as she had come out of their breakneck escape unscathed. But he? The Maverick would be lucky if he managed to destroy a Batton Mechaniloid in his current condition.

"You need to recharge. There's a pod in the room on the left that you can use. It's state of the art, so I'm sure you'll welcome it."

Vile's vision followed the nod of her head to the side room he had not checked out yet. The T-shaped visor returned to focus on her visage in silence. He was hesitant to comply. He had no idea whether she would try to pull something on him while he was offline.

"Don't give me that look. I'm not going to try anything. I need your brawn, so turning you in would be like shooting myself in the foot."

"No issue with getting me exposed to the dangers of your investigation, huh?" Mirthful sarcasm filled his voice, but it was only to hide the fact that she had a point. Even if they couldn't trust each other, if he was going to hold up his end of the deal, he at least needed the energy needed to activate his shoulder cannon.

"You could also use a full check-up. I have a friend who could help. As long as you're willing to shut down while he works on you," Nana was well aware that her friend wouldn't exactly appreciate the idea of repairing a dangerous Reploid like Vile; weapon systems and all. After all, he was a pacifist. But, than again, so was she and she was hobnobbing with a walking weapon.

Vile had to think about that offer even harder than the first. Many times in the past he'd been used – sometime against his will – by others who had had the chance to dig around in his body and head. However, if he was to be of use to anyone, including himself, he'd have to be fully operational again. If nothing else, he knew it was going to feel amazing to be himself again after months of wandering around, broken. A nod was all the operator got from the Maverick in response, before he moved to the adjacent room.

That room was roughly the same size as the one Nana occupied, though square in shape. There were stacks of tools, equipment and materials scattered across the chamber in ordered chaos. The gear was either stacked up on the floor or filled the shelves of several open cabinets. In the center was a long, steel table that could, and was, being used for a variety of purposes. It was also a workspace of some sort. In the back stood the pod Nana had mentioned. After setting it to a full recharge, Vile heaved himself over the lip of the enclosure, and laid down into its cushioned canopy. Accompanied by the hissing of hydraulics, the pod sealed itself and initiated the selected process.

'I gotta be nuts to agree to this,' a heavy sigh as Vile gave his body the command to shut down completely, not merely enter a rest cycle. The only way for him to come back online was for someone to flip the proverbial switch for him...

"You want me to do whaaaaat?!" a high-pitched and exceedingly shrill voice filled the room. Nana had closed the door to the maintenance chamber, just in case Vile had not deactivated himself just yet. She knew her old friend had quite the annoying voice on him.

"Professor, I know it's a lot to ask. But, please? For old time's sake?" Nana used her sweetest voice and most vulnerable expression to further entice the strange Reploid on the other end of the line to give in.

Professor Gaudile uttered a long sigh, but that alone was enough for the operator to know he had surrendered, so a smile appeared on her lips. "Alright. Alright. For you. But I urge you to get out of there while you still can. Not only does the whole Maverick Hunter business sound like a hornet's nest, but now you've attracted a Maverick on top of it all. Vile, no less!"

"I know how dangerous and risky it is, but you're going to have to trust me to take care of myself. If there was any other way to find out the truth, I'd take it. But this is it, my last resort," her smile softened from victory to appreciation as the professor's concern was palpable in his voice and body language alike. "I'm not just doing this for my own conscience. I'm doing this for Chief R."

"You're too kind, Nana," Gaudile released a protracted groan of utter frustration. "Now there's two girls whose smiles make me go against my better judgement." After a brief pause, he looked up again and nodded. "I'll leave right now, shouldn't take me too long to get there. I'll bring Cinnamon along too. You two haven't spoken in ages. Besides, I could use her help; sounds like Vile's in pretty bad shape."

"Thank you, professor. I look forward to seeing the both of you. Oh! And thank you again for this place. You're a real life saver," the operator waved at the scientist before breaking off the transmission and returning to work. She needed to decrypt and analyze the files she had stolen from the archives. Maybe Vile would loosen up a little if he awoke to some good news?