I glanced at Mira before heading in front of her, leading the way forward. The cave took an unnatural turn after a while, with pick and drill marks that had slightly smoothed away thanks to erosion. The temperature of the cave dropped too, making me quite thankful for my jacket. I edged forward, calling Mira to me as I stumbled across a massive cavern at the end of the mined tunnel.
Lichen, in all its bioluminescent glory, lit up the place. The entire area was some kind of gargantuan storage room, almost like a buried shipping yard. Stacks and stacks of boxes covered the entire place, and there was a thin layer of nasty water covering the floor of the room. Beams crisscrossed the entirety of the space and rusted lights hung from them. Unfortunately, the wire work seemed to be incredibly frayed by years of small rodents gnawing on it, so there was little hope of turning the lights on.
It looked like a normal, albeit massive, storage room, but something about it just felt a bit… off. It was like there was a malevolence to the air that I picked up on thanks to Insight’s chill down my spine. And yet, not the typical ‘in danger’ chill I usually got? It was heavily muted, and I wouldn't have even noticed if I wasn't paying attention. Maybe the sheer size of the place triggered Insight? Like there was something down here, but it was too big for Insight to pinpoint where?
Regardless, I felt something was wrong. Just as Mira warned me back in the subway before the variant attacked, I decided it was best to warn her even if it was nothing. "Be careful. Something doesn't feel right."
Mira walked up behind me and froze in the same spot. “That- that's a lot of crates… Why were a bunch of Fedra guys guarding some crates? Weapons stash?”
“Maybe-”
“Look.” Mira pointed out towards the center of the room, where a piece of graffiti done in blue Light Paint rested just below the water’s surface. It was thirteen glowing blue circles set up to form a larger circle. I had seen enough FSA propaganda to recognize the symbol at a glance: Fedra. Looks like they were right after all. So much for being stubborn.
Worse still, under the dim light of the paint, at least a hundred skeletons were piled into a massive mound. Another mound sat not far off, though the bones didn’t look human. “Fuck… think it's our guys?”
Mira raised her rifle and stretched her muscles. “One way to find out.”
We moved into the massive chamber, taking our time to make sure there wasn’t anything lurking in the dark. It was quite annoying to move through the chamber thanks to the layer of water covering the entire place, but we managed to make decent time. My choom took pictures the entire time, documenting what we found.
After we got closer to the middle of the unsettling room, I popped the lid off of a rotting crate. Chrome limbs, the ancient-looking tech covered in rust, filled the crate from top to bottom. “They working with Scavs?”
Mira popped open another crate, revealing rows of dusty rifles long past their date. “Probably not. Everyone hates Scavs. And this stuff is just sitting here. Scavs quickly sell their ill-gotten loot.”
We sloshed through the thin layer of water, finding all kinds of goods in the varied containers. Everything from chrome to even piles of metal ore. It was like it was some kind of dumping ground for a freighter back during the K-10 Blockades. And the stuff was all ancient. It had the look and feel of stuff from the Second Great Depression.
Yet, the timelines didn’t match up. The K-10 Blockades were over forty years ago, and this warehouse was only set up ten years ago based on the disappearances of the two hundred troops and Operation Beachhead. Why would Fedra dump a ton of crates here? Unless... unless it wasn't Fedra? No, that was just my stubbornness speaking.
I checked a few other crates as we went until we reached the very middle of the place to find much of the same. Fedra’s sign took up a massive area, and the mounds of skeletons were resting all around it. I moved over to the non-human ones and checked them first.
They looked like some kind of four-legged creature… rats, maybe? But they were big, at least a size bigger than the giant rats that scamper around the Underground. Their bones were also weird with odd growths and bony protrusions that seemed unnatural. There were hundreds, maybe even thousands of skulls peeking out from the pile of bones. Maybe some kind of special mutated rat?
“Shiro! Come here.” Mira’s voice, sounding sadder than I’ve ever heard her, called through the comm channel.
I shuffled over to her, avoiding the central area of the Fedra sign. It gave me a bad feeling, which was par for the course considering this place. She was standing quite close to the mound of human remains. “What?”
Mira shifted to the side, allowing me to see dog tags stacked into a small pile just barely peeking over the layer of water filling this place. “We found them.”
I patted her shoulder and looked at the mountain of bones. “Let’s uh- let’s grab all the tags, and-”
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My hair rose, and a distinct feeling I was being watched washed over me. A moment later, Insight pinpointed where, and I snapped my head up to one of the beams crisscrossing over the cavern. Four small red dots sat on one of the beams, the rest of the form hiding in darkness. I blinked, and the dots disappeared as if nothing was even there in the first place.
“I- I swear I saw something move.” I wasted no time and began scooping up tags by the handful and tossing them into my various pockets, not even minding the fact I was dumping handfuls of stagnant water too. We could look through the mess later.
Mira snapped out of her daze and followed suit. “What did you see?”
“I dunno. Eyes hiding in a shadow, I think. Let’s just get out of here.” We already got what we needed. There was no point in sticking around, especially if reinforcements were on the way or a monster was lurking in the darkness.
“Right.” Barely a minute passed before we gathered all the tags. Mira led the way, charging back towards the entrance of the place as we barely took time to take more pictures. We moved quickly through the tunnels, eating up ground as we raced back to the subway station.
The return trip, aside from dodging past a few groups of other mercs and even what looked to be a Sentinel operative team moving through the area, was blessedly uneventful. Whatever I spotted back in the chamber didn’t chase or really even seem to care about us, so I chalked it up to some weird mutated creature. There were enough down here to go around. We had already marked the occasional danger points in the Underground on the way to the subway, so it was smooth sailing back.
I was tempted to climb up another of the several exits we found just to get out, but doing so was suicidal. No way to tell if the group at the top was friendly, so we just stuck to the original plan of heading back to the Fang’s.
Before too long, we passed by the Scav chokepoint. There was no one guarding it, and the bodies had disappeared. Some kind of massive mutant creature based on the tracks of blood. Not our problem; at least, not anymore. Hopefully whatever it was would head into the Scav Den and cause some chaos.
And then we were back at the entrance, dead on our feet. The climb back up was as annoying as always, especially with the added weight, but we managed. Course, halfway up I had to scream my identification to the Fangs on guard so we wouldn’t be shot. Taking off a mask with only one hand was surprisingly difficult. On a completely unrelated side note; exhaustion enhanced by vertigo happened to be a terrible combination when clinging to a ladder.
Mira pulled me up as I reached the top of the ladder, and an easy breath escaped my lungs as I finally took in some fresh air- or as fresh as city air can be. The Fangs around us looked uncomfortable, though that was probably thanks to how bad we reeked... or it was thanks to two heavily armed people coming up from the Underground?
I tiredly wiped a hand across my face and took out my phone to check the clock. We had been down there well into the next day, and the sun was probably just starting to come up. “Best you call in.”
Mira set all of our borrowed gear down and then we walked out of the Fang’s building. “Yeah… damn, I said maybe a day. He’s gonna be pissed.”
“Good luck with that…” I muttered as I stretched out. “What’s next?”
“Shower. Then hand over the tags to Pa’ and he’ll sort out the rest.” She nudged my shoulder. “Might even get some pay for his ‘informant’ that brought him the tags.”
“Some more money would be nice…” Especially considering I wasn't planning on getting paid at all.
“Speaking of, what are you going to spend it on? Should be at least a thousand Rayn for the tags alone.” Mira said as we finally got back to where she parked oh so long ago.
That was a good question. I had been thinking recently, mainly in my downtime, about how I wanted to spend the sudden inflow of money I’ve gotten. “Rent an office space or something.”
Mira popped open the car door and raised a brow at me. “Oh?”
“Well… pickpocketing isn’t exactly a concrete flow of money. It would be nice to have an area to work on some… projects while I’m waiting on a gig.” It was still a very loose idea at the moment. I could just get a larger apartment instead and set up a room there though. Hmm…
“What are you thinking of doing?”
I shrugged. “Maybe set up a fabrication shop as a front to make guns or something. I dunno.”
“That certainly… an idea.” We arrived back at the parking garage we left oh so long ago. “Um… gun’s though? Quite the competitive business…”
I opened the door and slid into the passenger seat. “It's not very thought out yet… maybe I should save a bit more and open up a garage or something instead.” People were always in need of a mechanic, regardless of who they were.
Mira chuckled as she started up the car and pulled out of the parking garage. “Well, maybe keep thinking about it? You could probably do all that in an apartment anyway... I didn’t even know you could handle mechanics.”
“I- I’ve been busy, you know? Not super great yet, but I can do some small stuff.” I shrugged and looked out the window. “Want me to come over after you drop me off? Or just go ahead and take the tags now?”
“Course! You could use a shower.” Maybe it was since we were back in relative safety? Some of the pepiness she usually had leaked back into her voice.
I gazed at her with my nose upturned. “I don’t have spare clothes.”
Mira eyeballed me. “We both smell like rotten guts and sewage. And you can just borrow some of mine. You’re way smaller than me, so it shouldn’t be a problem.”
“I am not way shorter than you!” My gaze turned hostile.
“I said small, you said short… guilty conscience? You’re like- a head and a half shorter than me.” She chuckled and ruffled my frankly nasty hair with her hand.
I swatted at her as she reflexively dodged the strike faster than she had the right to. “I’ll show you short!”
“Hey, you better not- I’m driving!”