The Tourist surfaced next to a dock at the bottom of the floating facility in the middle of the ocean. Everyone except for Kada unloaded out of the vehicle, alert and ready for whatever was coming. But nothing came. There was no alarm, no motion, no guns firing at them, nothing. Xard blasted the obviously placed security cameras with his Curse, but there was still no reaction.
Kada resubmerged The Tourist for now, delaying her actions so that the rest could get inside peacefully. The group trotted over to the door, still on edge, perhaps even more so from the odd serenity. There was no obvious method of entry they could find—no handles, switches, or places to put in a code—just a scanner. ‘Scan Identification Code’ was backlit on the scanner itself.
“Welp, forced entry it is.” Both girls took a step back as Xard placed his hand against the door. A blast of pressure later and the door was sent flying back into the entryway. Well, what should have been the entryway. That was another odd part. There was no sort of greeting sign, desk, person, robot, anything—just a hallway that led left and right.
But that was where the minimal oddness ended. It was clear that this place wasn’t meant to welcome human visitors, but then who exactly was it for? All the murals and paintings on the wall were beyond reason. Clearly, the person who built this place was unhinged, had a stupid amount of money, and an unbridled passion for dairy.
The first lovely visual they were blessed with seeing was a group of cows in lavish dresses dancing on their hind legs. They had their arms wrapped around each other and were dancing in a line, and really just looked like they were having a great time.
To the left was a depiction of a gritty back-alley murder in the night of dreary city. The victim was a pint of ice cream, several bullet holes in the tub. The contents were pouring out of its top and melting down the nearby drain. Off to the side, a carton of soymilk was being carted away in handcuffs by two butter-stick police officers.
The right hallway was much more peaceful, a long beautiful mural of sprawling hills with a babbling brook running through it. At least it was beautiful until upon closer inspection they realized that literally every part of the mural was actually paintings of cheese, from the sky to the blades of grass, with the brook flowing with milk.
The moment they stepped inside the weird dairyscape, an alarm finally started sounding. “That’s an AL49X01 alarm,” Rusa was able to place it immediately. Even Xard looked a little perturbed, but Jaid was full on bewildered. To ease the stares, Rusa informed them, “I suspected we would run into something like this, so I took the opportunity to study every alarm currently manufactured until I could differentiate them all by the sound they make.”
She walked over to the wall and pulled a permanent marker out of her pocket. “Let’s see, where exactly would the power cord be?” Rusa did some mental calculations and then heaved up onto her tippy-toes, just barely able to mark an ‘x’ onto the wall. “Please, fire a shot into that spot, Xard,” she instructed.
Xard did as he asked, and the blaring sound stopped. “That didn’t actually stop the alarm by the way. I just wanted the annoying sound to cease.” Rusa clarified, but it was justifiable. “If anyone is looking for us, they’re probably still looking.”
It was agreed that they’d split from there. Xard would head down the hall with the city murder scene while Jaid and Rusa would head past the cheesy hills. Before they separated, Xard handed them both earpieces to put in so they could stay in communication. “Why didn’t we get these when we had our training missions?” Jaid asked, a little bitter since they would have been stupidly useful.
“I dunno. You didn’t request them,” Xard shrugged and then blasted down the hall to dodge any further questions.
Rusa and Jaid took it at a much more leisurely pace, Rusa even taking the time to reintroduce herself. “Hello again, by the way. We haven’t had much chance to interact, huh?” They really hadn’t. Of the high-ranks that weren’t in the science division, Jaid had seen Rusa the least by far.
“Please forgive any rudeness from when we last spoke. I am now much more coherent and mature than when we first met.” It was true, Rusa had grown tremendously. She had been a small child on that first day, but now she was a young woman, probably about the same age as Jaid. She was slender and had an elegant purity and innocence about her, though from what Jaid had overheard, her mouth was a bit more crude. Rusa took the phrase ‘They grow up so fast’ to an entirely new level.
“I am Feyjrusa Sulatrieve, crown princess of Archlave,” she curtsied and introduced herself properly. “Please forgive any future interactions as I will not be as polite as this interaction. I have come to realize how needlessly wordy and time consuming proper speech and manners are. It wastes precious time where I’d much rather be doing something else.”
“You see, I get bored very quickly because of my Curse. I can consume so much information so fast, that even a normal second feels overbearingly slow to me. So, if I am not actively engaged in something, time almost comes to a standstill. It’s gotten to the point where if I’m not watching something or entertained in some way every waking moment, I get quite unsettled and anxious. Apologies in advance if I seem distant or uninterested. I am always listening, but I am also focusing on several other things.”
Without waiting for acknowledgement or permission, Rusa took out her phone and began watching something on hyperspeed as they walked. It was very hard to tell if Rusa was actually looking where she was going since her eyes didn’t have visible pupils. Even when they changed to one white and one black, it was impossible to tell the direction they were looking. However, Jaid felt like she noticed them rapidly moving around in her eye sockets regardless.
The answer came when they stumbled upon a robot. Even though Rusa never looked away from her phone, she clearly noticed it. “Allow me,” Rusa put the phone away and grabbed at the metal rod that had been swinging at her hip. It was hard to describe. The rod almost looked like a microphone in shape, but that was just for the convenience of carrying it.
While they hadn’t interacted much, Jaid had still seen Rusa plenty, even out and about walking the streets of Bisomote. Whenever she was outside of the compound, Rusa leaned fully into the persona of being blind. The rod in hand turned into a walking cane she’d use to swing around and sell the lie.
That was its main purpose, but it was also built for utility and for a fight. The blunt end that formed the head of the microphone-shape was used to beat people up without killing them. Jaid had witnessed Rusa put someone in their place for an egregious act of littering. She’d then turned the bottom part of the cane into an extremely-fine point to stab the litter and pick it up.
The robot in question was quite low-grade as expected. It was scanning the area, but facing away from them—far more oblivious than a human would be. Rusa snuck up behind it and turned the cane into a fine-point while it was still collapsed. She then stabbed the robot in a part that looked crucial but nothing happened. After a few more stabs in vulnerable spots, the robot collapsed before it could even turn around.
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“You go on ahead, Jaid,” Rusa suggested as she ripped the robot’s head off. “I’m going to figure out how this thing works.”
Not even two steps away, Jaid had to stop as the entire building shook. Loud explosions could be heard coming from outside, rumbling all around them. She guessed Kada had started her assault. It was her job to take down all the turrets using the artillery on The Tourist. Something about a laser cannon she’d stolen from one of their helicopters.
And in the end, that was basically the extent of the plan. Kada would attack the outside while the rest of them attacked the inside, all while trying to figure out how to secure the place and shutdown the transmission. The plan was that there wasn’t really a plan outside of a few concrete objectives.
In a way, it was relieving. Not the plan itself—that could use some work. Up until now, it had always seemed like the Fiends For Hire had everything planned out, from the announcement in Prosper, taking the world’s economy hostage, to even faking their own deaths. They’d somehow always been one step ahead of the rest of the world.
But it seemed that this wasn’t always the case. While the big stuff they probably milled over until it was perfect, the rest was all just improvisation. They weren’t great planners, more great improvisers, and honestly, that was a much greater threat. Being able to adapt to anything thrown at them was a terrifying ability.
Still, it made Jaid more comfortable. There was a good chance they’d suspected someone may try to infiltrate them, but since she hadn’t been caught yet, she’d adapted just as well. Even at this point, if she exhibited weird behavior, they may give her the benefit of the doubt. The longer she stayed, the more trust she gained, the more that could be excused. Why the CP had told her to make friends was starting to resonate with her more and more.
Jaid approached a corner connecting to a new hallway, but she wasn’t dumb enough to poke her head out. Instead, she unsheathed her sword and used its reflection to glance around the corner. Her intuition paid off. About a dozen robots were waiting to ambush her, even hiding behind cover they had made with tables. How very human of them. Whoever had programmed them had thought like a regular soldier, not a robot.
They didn’t have traditional guns, but were still aiming like they did. There were noticeable holes in their hands that likely served the same purpose. Jaid started working through her plan of attack. She could dash behind them without getting shot like she had with the Wukadai mercenaries, but odds are her same shock method wouldn’t work on their metallic bodies.
“Behind you.” Jaid jumped as she whirled around. “Sorry, I specifically informed you that I was behind you in an attempt to not startle you.” Rusa apologized, disappointed in her failed method.
“I thought you were examining that robot,” Jaid caught her breath. She had only left Rusa a few moments ago.
“Yes, and I finished,” Rusa declared confidently. “They’re of very simple design after all. And more importantly, I found their weakness.” Unlike Jaid’s cautionary approach, Rusa blatantly stuck her head around the corner. The robots began to fire as expected, but Rusa had already retracted her head well before the first shot was made, only needing a glance.
“Those are indeed the same model, so this will be simple,” Her confidence grew even more. “If you look closely at their hip joints, you’ll find them quite exposed. If you tug at the wire in their right hip even a little, it’ll pop out and they’ll shut down completely. Do not confuse it with the wire in the left hip, though. Pulling that will make it explode.”
Rusa looked at Jaid’s worried face for a moment before saying, “It will be easiest if I just take care of this myself.” Her eyes turned monochrome and the woman then strutted out into the hall as if she didn’t have a care in the world. Jaid reached out a hand to try to stop her, but she was already too far to grasp.
The robots responded immediately and began firing once more. Somehow, though, it was the worst shooting she’d ever seen. They were missing entirely and by a wide margin. While Rusa’s steps were erratic, it still seemed casual and fluid. She certainly wasn’t walking in a straight line—stumbling like a drunk.
It was quite uncomfortable to watch, but its effectiveness couldn’t be understated. The robots aimed precisely, but Rusa just wasn’t there anymore by the time they fired. The power of her Curse went beyond expectations. Rusa knew well in advance where the guns would be firing, and she simply chose not to be in that spot.
It was oddly similar to Nachi’s style of fighting, but instead of matching a rhythm, it looked like Rusa was guiding the robots with her own movements as they desperately tried to catch up. Rusa shuffled her way over to the first robot and had already pulled out the wire before it could even react to her intrusion.
Shutting down had been putting it lightly. Almost all of the robot's joints disconnected, and the parts crumbled to the ground as the frame collapsed in on itself. Rusa stumbled to the next and then the next. They died as easily as the first. Clearly, the robots weren’t intelligent enough to alter their course of action when engaged in such a way.
With each robot decommissioned, Rusa’s movements became less chaotic—more akin to standard dodging. It made sense; less to focus on, less to process and react to, and the more she could free her mind. After about half of them were wrecked, she even pulled out her phone again with her non-robot-destroying hand and went back to watching something while she finished up.
Jaid had gotten lost in amazement watching Rusa ruin the robots in record time. The whole endeavor probably didn’t even take a minute. She’d been so engrossed that she almost didn’t catch the robot that nearly fell onto her after it dropped out of a vent. Once she’d been able to recompose herself, she struck down the robot with no issue.
At least she’d contributed something. The two women moved on after Rusa finished up, coming across more robots along the way. She of course let Rusa take the lead since that was the most efficient course of action, but Jaid couldn’t help but feel like her presence was a little redundant. She understood why they’d overprepared and included her, but she may as well go back and wait at the docks at this point.
“Why are you here?” they heard Xard ask over their earpieces after silence all this time. “And did you have to drop in through the ceiling? I almost blasted your head off.”
“I finished with all the turrets, and I wanted to come melt some robots,” Kada whimpered at the scolding. There were then several seconds of muffled gunfire in the background followed by a bit of light giggling. “Heheh, stop it! These bullets tickle!”
Seems things are going fine on their end too. Not long after that, they discovered the control room for the facility. Jaid left Rusa to inspect it while she continued searching around. They didn’t want one of these entirely unstealthy robots to sneak up on them after all.
Weirdly enough, as Jaid backtracked through the way she came, she found more robots, but these were different. They had an odd paintjob to them, almost as if they were wearing overalls. Jaid didn’t attack them right away, but that’s because they didn’t attack her. Some of them turned and clearly scanned her with their eyes, but they did nothing aggressive.
Instead, they went back to their work of sweeping the floor, or more specifically, sweeping up all the bullet shells the security robots had fired. A few of them were also picking up the parts of their fallen comrades and chucked them onto a cart they were pushing around.
“Uhh, looks like we have some janitor robots that are only interested in cleaning up. Non-hostile so far.” Jaid did her due diligence and reported what she’d found over the earpiece. “Thoughts on how to engage?”
“Don’t gotta be so stiff, Jaid,” Kada criticized in return. “Coulda just asked if you should bash the friendly robots. Anyways, probably not if we can help it. Might be useful later. Maybe see if you can lock them in a room or something.”
Jaid followed the suggestion and found it surprisingly simple to do. Initially, she tried gently nudging them in a direction with her sword, but the robots went into the room of their own volition when they realized her intent. Why are the cleaning robots more advanced than the protection robots? The priorities of this place are seriously wacked out.