"What the fuck!?" Sato shouted, stepping back as blood gushed out of Kyle's neck. Archius stepped to the side, avoiding the blood as he fell onto the floor, one hand covering the wound. "I could have stunned him…"

"He knew, plus he is a terrorist," said Archius, grabbing onto Kyle's hand as he tried to get a clean kill. But Kyle kept writhing around, trying to throw Archius off him. He muttered, frustrated, "So annoying… Stay still. I'm trying to kill you."

Archius tried to get a clean kill, but Kyle continued to writhe. He rolled his eyes, before continually stabbing Kyle in the chest. For sure, he stopped moving after that. Sato wasn't all too phased as she knelt down, poking at him. Archius grumbled as he wasn't able to get a clean kill.

"Fucking hell, what did you do that for?"

"For the cause, at all costs. Things get messy sometimes, nothing we can do about that," said Archius, placing the body against the wall. Now that he thinks about it, Eliza probably knew something was up with him after he uncharacteristically gutted that Loyalist back in the factory… "And be thankful I didn't syringe him. How long will the loop stay on?"

"As long as I'm connected to it," said Sato. "And there is absolutely something we could do about it, what good are we if we stoop to the Loyalists'."

"Then we're just like the rest." said Archius, "What's so wrong about that?"

As their ideologies clashed, the walls became transparent as the server farm floor came into view. The elevator was like a pillar in the middle of a thousand servers. The elevator opened at the bottom floor. Exiting out, the duo were met with a massive server-farm. Databases and servers lined up in a labyrinth-like pattern up to the ceiling. Each was a pillar, cooled by liquid nitrogen tubes that made the whole room ice-cold. And luckily, there was not a single soul there.

"Alright, let's do this quickly," said Sato, walking off towards a raised platform on the opposite end of the room.

"Sure," said Archius. Looking around, he wasn't all too impressed by the setup, the CRIS had a far more robust system.

He followed her, walking up the stairs to the raised platform as she was working away, in her element as her uplink was connected to a computer. She attached a Cracking Stick into one of the system's ports.

"Alright… Krystalink 5.0 shouldn't raise any alarms…" Sato muttered to herself, before becoming consumed by a wave of information.

"How long will it take?"

Sato glanced back at him as she pointed to her uplink. It blinked colours along with her ICAPAD. He rolled his eyes as she went back to processing the information. After a few minutes, her voice called out. "I've done all I can with 5.0. I need a code to access the admin-menu, if I bypass it with one of Clandestine's old zero days it'll trip the alarms. Can your eyes do something about that?"

"Absolutely not…" said Archius, "They're more useful alive than dead. Just bypass it, alright?"

"Ah, great, so this is a suicide mission!" she complained.

"We'll take one of the emergency exits." said Archius, "If we create enough noise, it'll cover our escape."

"I hope you're right…"

As silence fell, she took a deep breath before pressing down on a touchscreen button, then clicking onto her uplink to bypass the firewalls. The lights of the server room turned blood red as alarms started to blare.

'UNAUTHORISED ACCESS OF MASTER COMPUTER. FACILITY BREACH PROTOCOLS ENGAGED.'

As Archius glanced at the elevator, he noted that it started to move upwards. He stepped backwards, frantically tapping her on the back. "They'll be down here any minute!"

"I'm trying…" said Sato. He glanced over at the holographic monitor. She was simply clicking and searching through a massive admin-system. And then, she tried to activate the ping-module. A screen flared upwards at Sato as she shot Archius a look.

"SHIT. I NEED A FUCKING PASSWORD?!"

"I don't know? Bypass it?" He glanced back at the elevator, noting down the descending, blinking number above the elevator doors. He ran down the steps and hid behind one of the pillars.

"Bypass it?! I'm not some fucking genie!" shouted Sato, clearly angry and panicking. Neither of them had combat-netics on, so fighting Loyalists isn't impossible, but not advisable. "Hacking isn't what it's like on the screens, didn't they teach that to you in actor school?!"

"Well… do something, because right now there's a dozen blood thirsty mercs that want to kill us!" said Archius, unholstering his revolver as his frustration reached even higher levels than before.

"Oh, I didn't know that! Thanks for telling me. I thought they were coming along as customer support," Sato snapped, frustrated and pissed at Archius' comments.

He could see the elevator now, sliding downwards to the bottom floor. And as they touched down, Sato typed in 1234. As she bypassed it, she sent out a ping to all Loyalist locations as the doors of the elevator slid open.

"WHAT THE FUCK?" She shouted out loud.

Her ICAPAD flowed with information.

Loyalists poured out as Archius fired at them. They took cover amongst the servers to the side as one of them fell, head-popped from the revolver.

Archius narrowly avoided a bolt to the head, ducking into cover as Sato jumped down to the pillar beside him. He placed a hand to his head, feeling a streak of blood fall down, explosive bolts! Fragmentation threw itself up from the impact of each bolt, forcing him down and further into cover.

"Done, let's get out of here!"

"Alright, follow me." Archius said, firing blindly into the Loyalists' general direction as he made his way towards the side of the room, followed by Sato.

The two were chased down as the Loyalists quickly swarmed onto them. But each one that got close was blasted by the two, who threw incendiaries to slow the Loyalists down.

As they fled towards the side of the room, Archius looked back, seeing the Loyalists slowly trek across the fires with their fire-retardant armour. Entire sections were lit up with gunfire as they ran. Sato took a bolt to the chest-plate, knocking her to the ground. A second bolt narrowly missed her, Archius fired back frantically as he stepped out of cover. He took a bolt personally, but withstood the shrapnel, kicking Sato into cover.

She recovered, coughing up. "FUCK ME! THAT HURTS!" she shouted, injecting herself with an injector as she stuck one into Archius, joining her in cover.

"They're bullets, they're supposed to hurt!"

Archius noted that they were swarming onto them… Fuck, he has to buy them time. He looked back at Sato, who had her eyes attached to the console-pad attached to the server column they were hiding behind.

"The fuck?"

"I… I think I can do something from here!" said Sato, detaching the console from the server as she immediately started to crack into it. Archius grumbled to himself, making a strained face as he fired back at an approaching Loyalist - a lucky shot skimming them in the face.

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN SOMETHING?" said Archius, his chest-plate taking another bolt. A Loyalist was rushing up to them. FUCK. He has to do something!

"And… tada!" Sato shouted, a loud screech of engines pouring into the room from up above. DRONES! A fuck load of them, all firing down. The Loyalist turned around the column, only to be spliced into two pieces by a drone bolt.

Stolen story; please report.

The remaining Loyalists were sent into cover. With this moment of respite, Sato took the lead - grabbing onto Archius and rushing to the side. Archius took lead straight after, leading them across the room - over to a small exhaust grate. The words 'Maintenance Shaft' was written above it in red ink, Standard Galactic.

It was small, but usable, Archius lit up a smoke bomb.

"Really?" asked Sato.

"Got a better idea?" snapped Archius, his voice teeming with light anger. "I fucking thought so."

∗ ∗ ∗

The two crawled through the vent-like environment as they slowly ascended upwards with much difficulty. By now, gunfire was sporadic as they could hear the alarms through the shaft walls. Archius kept close behind Sato as they reached up towards the Sub-Level surface, kicking on the seal mechanisms in the shaft to prevent any pursuers.

Sato stopped as Archius jabbed at her leg from behind. "Something up?"

"Sewer grate, you think it's safe for us?" asked Sato, trying to twist her head back towards Archius, smacking into the low ceiling as she frowned, rubbing her forehead.

"Absolutely not, but what choice do we have?" Archius asked in return. Sato grumbled, lifting the sewer grate up, cold, dusty air filled their nostrils as they exited out.

They had emerged on a street nearby, outside the fight. Looking around, the surface was in chaos as ENFORCERs were crawling all over the place, probably because of the loud alarms. Loyalists were engaged in a skirmish with them. The buildings all around were alight with explosives and gunfire as AGENCY shuttles roared by overhead, gunning down a group of Loyalists that fired down at the ENFORCERs on the streets.

Civilians were running away as a few criminals tried to use the opportunity to loot corpses, houses and establishments. A stray spray of bullets from an AGENCY shuttle nearly skewered Sato as Archius grabbed onto her, throwing themselves into a nearby alleyway. They started off into a run.

"Let's get back to the shuttle," said Sato. "So much for a twenty minute mission, tops…"

"Hey, we got the locations." snapped Archius.

The two avoided the combat as they quickly sneaked their way back to their shuttle, hiding in ghoul-infested alleys and slinking back across the walkways. The Sub Levels haven't changed one bit, still teeming with life and alive. One small shootout won't change anything; and everyone knew that. Not even two blocks away and there were people buying pasties from the stalls.

"Where the fuck are we going?" asked Sato, keeping close to Archius.

Archius kept his eyes on a swivel as he glanced back towards Sato. "Nothing much, just going for a walk!" He placed a wide smile on his face, before turning back. He dropped the facade. "There are eyes watching us, don't look back. Can you feel them?"

"Huh? No?" Sato whispered as Archius grabbed hold of her arm, dragging her into a crowd as they diverged into a massive marketplace, a small kid bumping into Sato, then into Archius, before tripping over; Sato paused, but Archius kept pulling her forward. It was brimming with light and grit - shouts and sales all about. "I'm a navy coordinator at heart, you think I can detect that?" She grumbled under her breath.

Archius shrugged, "Fair enough, we're far from any CRIS safehouses, we'll have to change disguises here."

"What?" Sato furrowed her brow, pushing forward to walk beside Archius, the two still wearing their light armour.

Archius' eyes skidded over towards a shop-vendor, with a bunch of beige and dull coloured cloaks for sale. PERFECT, Archius noted. "That vendor, do you have any money?"

"Don't you have any yourself?" Sato mumbled, grumbling as she went to place her hands in her pocket. She paused for a moment, "Huh?"

Without even realising it, she had lost her wallet; of course Archius knew. And he slammed it into her chest. "Keep it safe, that kid from earlier tried to pickpocket you."

"Huh?! Uh… thanks," said Sato, placing her wallet underneath her armour, into one of the interior pockets. "I guess you kicked him over."

"No, I injected Thalesia nerve agent into him," Archius whispered. "Who the fuck will know in this mess?"

"Archius…" Sato trailed off, before sighing. She wasn't angry, more disappointed at his approach of killing a child.

"What? Death of one child is a tragedy to you?" Archius dropped the facade, glaring at Sato. "I'm guessing that the death of tens of thousands was just a statistic to you."

"Look… I…" Sato cut herself off, before shutting up. Archius turned forward, now wasn't the time for that.

Passing up towards the vendor, Archius placed on a smirk, wiping away the memories. "Oi, oi, oi, you got some cloaks there seems."

His entire personality had changed as he glanced back towards Sato, then back at the vendor, an old man with pale white hair and a long beard. "Yep, there be some cloaks, but for you two? Two hundred a piece. You both look like you need it pretty badly…" The vendor said, eyeing up the two operatives.

Archius' eyes glanced towards Sato, she shook her head. "This is your op, I ain't paying…" Petty, Archius thought. His eyes skidded in the other direction. The eyes were getting closer. He'll need to act fast, but not make a ruckus.

Glancing at the wares, a lot of the vendor's stuff was already gone, with a lot of them being at random. He'd been here for a while, but his cloaks weren't selling, it seems. Kazuki told him something about supply or demand and whatever, he couldn't care less.

"Look, your cloaks don't seem to be selling," said Archius, posturing to look more amicable as he gesticulated with his hands. "I mean no offence to your products, of course! But we need those cloaks, and you have a high supply of it, wouldn't hurt, would it?"

The old vendor mulled it over to himself for a few moments, before nodding his head. "Fine! One hundred and fifty. I can go no less!" he said, crossing his arms. Archius made a strained face, shaking his face and faking a string of thought.

They were getting close. Come on old man, Archius thought, break already. A few moments passed as Sato tugged on Archius. "Fine… I'll pay," she whispered to him.

Archius ignored her, he won't let his ego or pride be hurt like this. The eyes were getting CLOSER. And the old man wasn't budging.

Archius had to act. And he lied, "Look, I know a guy down in the…" Archius' eyes scrambled to the name of a bar nearby, across the market, there were a bunch of cloaked men hanging around it, lurking between shadows and light, eyeing up everyone going in and out. "The Wyviraar… He's a good friend. And he is a good friend to you, as well. But…"

Glancing back at the establishment, it looked bad from the outside, but it felt even worse to Archius. He went with his gut feelings and slowly showed his revolver.

"We both know what this means, don't we?" bluffed Archius. He relied on the simple notion that crime was on every corner to try and squeeze some believability into his empty threat.

The vendor's face slowly pulled back, going pale. "You're with them?"

Archius snatched up the cloaks, putting one on as he shoved the second one onto Sato. The vendor didn't even flinch. "Of course I am. Now, we'll be going," said Archius, his heart racing. His gamble worked, holy fuck it worked! Archius turned away and started walking, with Sato. He smirked.

"Shit, what the fuck was that? Are they still onto us?" Sato worryingly asked. "And you've been down here before?"

Archius paused for a moment, before continuing through the marketplace. "It was a technique called lying, you should try it sometimes. And no, I just betted that criminals would deal in some of the bars," Archius smack-talked Sato.

"And you bet EVERYTHING on that?" Sato grumbled.

"Oh, please!" Archius started, "They don't teach you in navy-school, but down in the dumps and the cesspits across the galaxy, crims always gravitate towards bars… networking, booze and easy racketeering - what's not to love!"

"Alright… alright…" Sato hushed her voice. "But the eyes?"

Archius scanned through his mind. "No…" He remained somewhat cautious as he slid through the crowd with Sato. "We're safe, at least that's what my instincts tell me."

"Thank FUCK." Sato heaved a sigh, following Archius out of the marketplace and out onto a side-street. "Remind me… to never go on a mission with you again."

"Uh, nah," Archius quipped.

Continuing on, they reached their shuttle, parked where they left it. But as they were about to get onboard, magnetic locks engaged from above - locking the shuttle in place. A shuttle was tracking them. FUCK, IT HAS TO BE THEM! The two raised their guns upwards as a figure dived out. Archius fired a single shot, a bolt deflected off into the walls.

He ceased fire as the figure crashed into the ground in front of them. Fear consumed Archius as Sato pointed towards him. The jet-black hair, golden eyes and burnt, cracked cheek of their boss shone darkly at Archius. Kazuki, to put it mildly, looked far from pleased, even with no visible emotions. He glared at him as he extended out his figure. It felt like he towered over them.

"I thought… this was sanctioned…" said Sato, scrambling backwards with nerves in her voice to not attract her boss' ire "Right, Archius?!"

"Ah… well, about that…" Archius trailed off as Kazuki approached him.

And as he did, he slapped Archius across the face. "What the fuck are you doing!? I heard reports of you two going missing and then reports of a blacksite being shot up."

Archius was knocked back by the slap, rubbing his cheek as he looked up at Kazuki. Even as he shouted at him, his face and voice felt calm and collected, devoid of all emotion. "Relax, we're alive and we have the locations of every single base these Loyalists have set up."

"Fine. I'll let this slide… But be aware that I will not be as lenient on the two of you the next time you worry me." Kazuki grumbled for a moment, glancing to the side. Archius could see some steel repair braces around his nape - he must have been in the middle of something with Eliza. 'Someone, get me Martinez. Scramble all AGENCY Forces on Anagora to full alert and bring backup.'

"Hey! It was his idea…" grumbled Sato, rolling her eyes as she got caught up in Archius' act.

Archius smirked, it felt nice to know that Kazuki was actually worried about him and Sato - probably more about Sato actually now that he thinks about it. Kazuki looked back. As the two exchanged glares, he noted something behind the sparkless eyes: emotions. And his soul sang the song of anxiety.