An OAR? I guess that's what the vultures are called. I pull up the description and begin reading.

"The Opertunistic Aerial Reconnaissance or the OAR is a well rounded aerial scout meant to probe enemy forces and engage light or unguarded targets if possible. While not entirely meant for direct engagements they are still able to put up a decent retaliation if needed. Can be constructed in a Medium Drone Works."

Nice, now I have a main line aerial melee fighter. Pulling the description away I see that the various Flock drones have now gone back to doing their thing. Looking over to my spiders I see that they are still working on some of the injured drones so I decide to leave them too it. Not seeing much more of a point to staying here much longer I decide to set off back to base with my scorpions and hornets.

The trip back was uneventful for the most part aside from the occasional curious wild drone. Upon arriving at the factory I see that the spiders assigned to the base have begun improving the barricades which means they have finally finished with upgrading the core. The swarm of spiders have decided to start chipping at the larger pieces of concrete to form them into more of a blocky shape and using the newly formed block to replace the loose ruble which was there previously.

Walking over to the drone works I order up a few of my own vultures and, after checking how many woodpeckers I lost, I also order for two of the woodpeckers. With the new drones slowly pumping out of the drone works I decide to take a few hornet guards and walk over to the subway system.

As I approach the guarded area around the subway entrance I can see my veteran hound and two groups of subordinate hounds, both formally feral and homegrown alike. The veteran seems to be drilling the two groups of mixed hounds on pack tactics by having them do a mock battle. My veteran seems to notice me approaching and signals for the training hounds to stop, which they immediately do and look grateful for the break.

All the hounds present snap to attention upon seeing me and I wave them off. My veteran seems to tell the other hounds to go back to training and then stands up on all fours and begins to follow me as I walk over to the subway entrance. I immediately notice that the lights are substantially brighter and, after a few moments of checking, the flicker is gone as well. Reaching the bottom of the stairs and the subway proper, I see that it is the same down here.

I guess the spiders did a good job at repairing those generators. Looking over to the subway train still half way docked on the far end of the corridor I have an idea. Walking over and into the first cart I take a left and to where I am guessing is the driver's seat or whatever drives the train. I soon walk up to a metal door that has another "Employees Only" sign plastered on it.

I briefly thought about having my hornets blast a hole like the last time but I stop myself once I realize I might hit something important if I do. On a whim I attempt to simply turn the handle but to no avail. A few minutes of troubleshooting I got the idea of having one of my spiders give it a try. I order a couple of my woodpeckers to carry a spider over to me and so I begin to wait.

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The woodpeckers arrived faster than I thought they would and so my spider was quickly scooted over to the locked door. The tiny drone climbs up to the lock and extends its welder and activates it. Over the course of a few minutes the tiny drones slowly cut through the metal door and before long there was now a softball sized hole right where the lock was. Opening the door I see a console holding a bunch of buttons, dials, screens, and switches. None of which I have the faintest of ideas on what they do.

Reaching over to experimentally poke a few buttons, one of my fingers suddenly turns into what looks like a USB stick in a Transformers style transformation. Then, as if sensing my presence, the console lights up and seems to direct me to what I assume is the port of my now USB finger. Shrugging to myself I mutter, "Nothing ventured, nothing gained," and without further ado, I plug my finger into the port.

Upon plugging into the console, all the random buttons began lighting up. Then a speaker from somewhere sprang to life and began spitting out static before straightening out to gibberish and then intelligible words.

"Systems online. Suitable AI handler detected. Required activation apparatus nominal. Rebooting now."

As soon as the voice ceased speaking, the whole subway train jerked forward. Then the train scooted ahead for a few moments before grinding back to a halt. A couple seconds after the train stopped all the doors began sliding open again and so I poked my head out. Seeing that it was safe for me to walk out of the subway cart fully, I stepped back a few paces and looked back to see the train had moved itself fully into the station.

I also noticed a confused and partially angry purple hound stomping out of the farthest back cart. The hound in question storms over to me and yells at me that "YOU COULD HAVE AT LEAST WARNED ME ABOUT THAT". They seem to falter slightly when I look down upon their comparatively small frame but they still have enough simmering fury to look back at me indignantly.

"Ohh don't give me that. You're fine. It's not like I blew up your section of the train or anything." I retorted with just as much dismissal in my tone. Paisleigh replies with a "Hmph," before slipping away back to her subway cart.

As she is walking away, I get a message from the scout group that I sent down the tunnels saying that they found another station. According to them, the station is down the tunnels for about sixteen hours of walking before they split into two. The station was then around eight hours down the right path which eventually ends at the station and does not go any further.

My scouts then exited the station to find that they were about twenty minutes away from the warehouse outpost. The scouts had decided to update me on their progress before they set off to check where the left tunnel at the split off goes too. Well that will certainly be helpful and would definitely help transporting any leftover stuff at the outpost. Maybe even be a set off point for an attack on the final MAI outpost before their actual home base.

Skimming through my mental checklist I decide that, since I do not have anything more important to do, I should go over to the other station near the warehouse to go and set up a perimeter. I had my veteran hound go fetch a few of his troops and before long were back on the train. My lead hound decides to go, probably to check on his subordinates and warn Paisleigh, while I begin to power on the train.

Inserting my finger once again, the train slips back to life and one of the screens begins to display a network of tunnels and stations along with a bar at the top stating to pick a destination. Choosing the one that goes in the direction my scouts had explored the train slowly begins to chug forward but soon after begins to speed up to a decent pace.

I take a seat on one of the many rows of sturdy but somewhat uncomfortable chairs that litter the subway and begin to wait as the train slowly tugs us along.