“How did I escape? With difficulty. How did I plan this moment? With pleasure.”

― Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo

Walking through the cell blocks after the lamps kick off is always dangerous. You never know if a mutated Hound is going to Break past the fences that separate the blocks. They'll do anything from smashing the roof off your place if you're lucky (having experienced that once was enough thank you very much) or rip into you for a quick meal if you aren't. Could be instead that one of the gangs high on viper would turn you inside out looking for compatible mods or just some quick credits to jack. Hell, even a scrapper down on their luck wouldn't think twice about shiving another they think they could take in a fight, just to get another cube of Nutri-Block and ward off the hunger for another week. Jace gets it, he used to be one of those desperate scrappers.

Shit like that is why you've got to find family, people to have your back and watch your ass as long as you do the same for them. It's one of the only things that make it worth pushing your limits down here, go that extra mile to actually make it to the next week. What's the point of keeping on if you don't have anyone there at the end of the day? There's more to life than just surviving and Jace would be damned before he loses the best family he’s ever had. Aether knows his Bio family was a real treat. Abuse, neglect and beatings that only ended when he was shoved out on his ass at fifteen years old. Cheap bastards just kept him around to pocket the credit stipend he should have had for specialized training lessons at the simulator. The Overseer may be a cold bastard but at least he gives basic training on how to survive down here, even if it's not enough to thrive. Jokes on them in the end though, they died a few weeks after he got kick out when a whole platoon of SEC drones went rogue, not much left of block thirteen now, even nearly two decades later.

That was a bloodbath, It was the only thing splattered across the news for weeks. The Security Enforcement Company took a bit of heat for it for sure. It's rare that topsiders care about what goes on down here in the Blocks but when the corporation they rely on for protection show they can't leash an A.I suddenly it's everyone's problem. Come to think of it, that event might have been the final straw that pushed the the Guardians to limit A.I development in the first place, even going so far as to outright ban Quantum A.I. The official story was that the SEC Q.A.I project was sabotaged by some kind of terrorist within the company that resulted in the Block thirteen massacre but no one down here believed that for a moment. Jace knew better, hacking a dumb machine is hard enough already but A.I? Those things are a whole different level of impossible. Not a fair fight when the damn thing can know more about hacking in five minutes than you could possibly learn in your entire life. His theory was that the SEC were testing how effective a drone squad could be if sole control of the swarm was handed over to Quantum A.I.

"Agitating myself isn't gonna help me or Zack." Quickly shaking off his scattered thoughts of the past, Jace pauses at the boundary line between his block and the scrapyard. From here he can just barely make out two figures in Exo armor standing guard over what counts for a gate in block ten. Barbed tungsten composite around twenty feet high and an inch thick only really works to keep folks in. "At least there aren’t any drones hovering tonight, that would have ended this suicide mission early for sure." The trick to getting out after dark has always been to go under the fence, bit easier to dig out dirt then risk cutting yourself to shreds going over barb wire; and no grunt in the SEC is gonna bat an eye at disturbed ground compared to a bloodied fence. Taking a few minutes to watch the routine of the guards "fairly lazy ones tonight, thank Aether." It takes a moment to pull his multitool out of his bag quietly-bulky as it is. The worn screen flickers worryingly for a moment before booting up. This thing may have cost him three weeks of scavenging working parts to put together and more credits than he'd readily admit to get it modified but it has been his edge over the other scrappers in his block. Having a tool that can identify all of the bits of robot wreckage he scavenges really lets him rake in some credits. Doesn't hurt that with enough samples it can recreate blueprints-and with his modifications? Even replicate some of them.

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Pulling up the tool he needs should only take a second but it's the better part of a minute before he succeeds. He understands the problem immediately, he can't get his damn hands to stop shaking. “It's not like you haven't done this before Jace, calm the hell down.” But regardless of his words the shaking doesn't stop, it just gets worse until he realizes what's causing it. “I'm scared?" I almost died today, and here I am about to go out after curfew, in the dark and near a hound nest to save the guy who almost killed me. He chuckles weakly "What the hell is wrong with me?” [it's because you're a coward Jace, you're not special. When you die no one is going to miss you, but you know that already don't you?] "No fuck not now please!" panicked hands scramble for his bag. Looking back at him from the screen of his Multi Tool is a ghost, a fat bastard who died over a decade ago. [I might be dead, but that doesn’t mean you get to escape being reminded of your failings right?] [I mean you make it so easy! All this Guilt you carry around for each mistake and you have oh so many of them don’t you?] Quickly reaching into his bag he fumbles for his pills, he might be running low but now or nev- [Oh so now you're an addict too Jace? That's low even for you, what would the lovely lady Kat now?] “SHUT UP!" he screams in reply, Tearing the top off the bottle he jams two pills down his throat, shuts his eyes and clamps his hands over his ears. “Shut up. You're dead and I killed you, I'd do it again a hundred times if it meant I could get her back and a THOUSAND more to get you out of my HEAD!”

“Hey! What are you doing over there reject? Back away from the gate right now, nice and easy.” One of the pair of exo-soldiers waves the mounted cannon toward Jace, who takes a deep shaky breath, slowly holds a hand up and calls out “I'll go, I’m going right now, please don’t shoot, I just have a bit of Aether poisoning. You know how it is, right? I'm gone." So saying Jace carefully backs away from the gate, taking care to stay near one of the cells at all times. SEC goons are less likely to try and blow a hole through him if it would risk collateral damage but that risk is never exactly zero, paperwork be damned. After backtracking for the better part of fifteen minutes he makes his way back toward another segment of wall, almost floating as the pills really start wreaking havoc on his system. Fumbling for his multitool he selects the spider drill and absent-mindedly pays the credit cost, four of the solid disks of metal scattering into dust. Slowly, painfully slowly the dust floats down, seeming to pull at small bits of scrap that decorate the ground as the tool works its magic.

Jace takes a measure of peace from watching the construction of the Spider Drill. The cloud of black dust methodically forming solid steel legs, eight of them taking shape over the next few minutes. They meet the hard chassis of the machine and flow along its smooth sides, etching a designation number as they go SD-003. Moving to the head of the machine where a pristine drill bit begins to form. Nearly three feet long and half as wide it should make quick work of the relatively smooth dirt beneath the fence. Job finished; the cloud of dust seems to shudder before collapsing into a small pile beneath the completed construct, it stands attentively single red "eye" glancing up at Jace. With a few careful motions on his multitool he directs it to begin drilling a exit.

The newly named SD-003 eats away at the dirt for what feels like an hour but in reality is probably closer to five minutes. In place of once solid dirt there is now a space large enough for Jace to crawl under the barbed fence. Moving slower than absolutely necessary he takes in the state of himself, a little high and a bit injured from his accident earlier today (at least he hopes it was today). “Survival rate is looking great” he mutters “probably could have just skipped the autodoc entirely and saved us all the trouble.” Dusting off his jumpsuit as best he can-pausing slightly at the rusty, brown stains that decorate it- he begins making his way through a somewhat unfamiliar section of shipping crates and scrapped bots.

“No wonder I set the guards off; I'm a mess, should have cleaned up so I can leave a pretty corpse I guess." Snickering to himself at the bad rhyme. " Pills are hitting harder than I thought...the detour with them probably cost me an hour if I want to be careful though here.” Annoyance creeps into his tone, “I swear man if I die out here and you turn around and make it somehow I'm haunting your ass forever.” Feeling mollified at his action plan as a pleasant tingle races up his spine he pushes on. Following what scrapper marks he can as he goes. " As long as I don't miss one I should come up on the boundary of the site soon enough." "I'm coming buddy, please don't be dead.”