“Just hold it up against my back for a second,” Rush said. Giza complied, albeit hesitantly.

“Is that silver stuff going to touch me? It looks slimy.”

“Elvis says he’ll try not to touch you,” Rush said. “He also says that he looks shiny, not slimy.”

“Uh, sorry, Elvis,” Giza said. She still wasn’t completely sure about this ‘Elvis’ entity that supposedly lived in the silver goo. Rush lying seemed improbable, but so did talking science goo. “It’s just that you live in his blood, apparently? That seems unsanitary.”

“He says he’s perfectly sanitary,” Rush said. “But he understands your concerns.”

The wave of silver washed out from the Kell Cell on the armor’s back, and latched on to the battery Giza held, thankfully without touching her. Elvis’s nanomachines drew the battery back and slid it into a place near the Kell Cell’s coupling, rearranging nearby wires and armor plates to accommodate the new arrival. In seconds, it looked like the battery had been there all along.

“Thank you,” Rush said. He stood up and flexed his back to make sure the new arrangement didn’t affect the suit’s mobility at all. It didn’t, so he turned his attention to the next project. “Now we have to deal with this.”

They had salvaged one other piece of tech from the fallen mecha: a shield generator. Or a Kellarin-Tech Energy Negation Field, as Elvis insisted it be called. Apparently “shield” was a scientifically inaccurate term for what it did; the unit did not generate any kind of tangible barrier, but instead redirected energy around the wearer to prevent harm. Elvis insisted it was better than a shield, even, as the energy negation field could prevent damage from falling, or ambient heat and radiation. Rush was more immediately concerned with not getting crushed if he ever got slapped by a mecha hand, but the radiation stuff sounded nice too.

“Can we not just slap it on and let the goo do its thing?”

“We could, but look at it,” Rush said. He held up the shield generator, which was about the size of his forearm. “This is a mech-sized generator. It’s going to make a mech-sized shield.”

“Is that a problem?”

“For my power supply, yes,” Rush said. He tapped the center of the device, a circular indentation with a multi-faceted crystal about the size of his fist in the center. “I need a different emitter to generate a smaller field, or I’m going to burn through all my batteries in a fraction of a second.”

“Well, maybe we can find one inside,” Giza said. She pointed up the broken mountain, at the exposed facility they would soon be venturing into.

“Maybe,” Rush said. “I was hoping to have the shield active before we went in.”

“You’ll be fine,” Giza said. “We carved you out a shield and everything. Speaking of, we should probably start hauling that thing up.”

Rush nodded, and picked up the scrap of mecha armor. The piece of plating would hopefully protect him from any dangers inside the facility, just like in the crash crater. Rush hauled the slab uphill until they met the advance team, who had not done much advancing.

“Have you cowered in front of the door sufficiently to appease it, Eiffel?”

“Ease up, Giza,” Jack said. “Eiffel might be on to something this time.”

“He’s being paranoid,” Liam said.

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“Look at this place. Everybody says slagmounts are just random piles of molten metal. But there’s miles and miles of empty dirt around here,” Eiffel snapped. He threw his hands wide at the facility, and at the barren expanse of Scrapworld spreading out around them in all directions. “And this slagmount just happens to be on top of some big spooky facility?”

All up and down the mountain, there were ripples in the slopes where the molten metal had cooled as it slid downwards. It had seemed coincidental at first, a natural consequence of melting metal. Now that Eiffel could see the formerly-buried facility, he could also see that all the striations in the slagmount were centered around the tower.

“Somebody melted over this place deliberately,” Eiffel said. “Whatever’s inside, someone wanted it buried. Forever.”

“I already want to go in, Eiffel, you don’t need to get me more excited,” Giza said.

“Listen to me, Giza,” Eiffel said. “Maybe whatever they buried here should stay buried.”

“It’s already unburied, Eiffel,” Liam said. “It’s either full of loot or full of danger. If it’s full of loot and we walk away, we’re missing out on a legendary haul. If it’s full of danger and we walk away, the next poor group of Junkers to stumble on it won’t have Rush and his suit of armor to help them clear it out.”

“Liam’s right,” Giza said. “Either way, we should be the first ones through.”

“You mean Rush should be the first one through,” Jack said. Rush put his helmet on and said nothing.

“We’ll be behind him,” Giza said.

“Speaking of. Rush, you’re the point man,” Liam said. “What do you think? Still want to go through with this?”

“Eiffel has a point. So do you and Giza. I at least want to look inside.”

“Sensible plan,” Liam said. “I think we can all agree to at least open the door.”

Eiffel and Jack relented. Once everyone was agreed, Rush grabbed his armor plate, went to the nearest door, and started breaking off the few chunks of molten metal that still held it closed. Once the way was clear, he braced the metal shell on his arm, opened the door, and stepped through. He held his position for a few seconds before daring to look past the shield. Whatever he saw, he examined it with his usual stoic silence, much to the frustration of his followers.

“Rush, what do you see?”

“Shirts, mostly.”

“Shirts?”

Liam’s curiosity got the better of him, and he poked his head through. Through the door, just to the left, several mannequins displayed shirts of different colors, all bearing logos of the Sol Imperium military branches, or Kellarin Tech research divisions. There were also hats, a few magnets, and some small toys.

“Oh, a gift shop,” Liam said. “Come on in, kids, coast is clear.”

Giza and the others began to peek in as Liam walked over and grabbed one of the nearby shirts. The material had held together surprisingly well over the centuries.

“Well, this should solve our clothing needs for a while, at least,” Liam said. Intact clothing was always a nice thing to have on hand. “Hope there’s more to this place than just a gift shop, though.”

“What is a ‘gift shop’?” Giza asked.

“It’s like a tiny store attached to some other place,” Liam said. “Usually a museum, or an art gallery, or something like that. You buy little trinkets to show off the fact that you were there.”

Liam pulled the shirt off the nearest mannequin, and the motionless statue fell, hitting the floor with a thump. He tossed the shirt at Giza, then directed her attention to the rows of other shirts on the shelves.

“Get these out of here and stockpiled by the door first,” Liam said. “Somebody else can pick them up while we head deeper in.”

“Oh boy, laundry,” Giza said. “Exactly what I wanted as I plundered a centuries-old secret base.”

“Speak for yourself,” Eiffel said. He grabbed a bundle of ancient shirts from one of the shelves. “It’ll be nice to wear something that doesn’t have ten years worth of sweat on it.”

The first batch of unorthodox treasure crossed the threshold of the gift shop, and a red light came on near a dusty checkout booth. Eiffel dropped his shirts and bolted out the door.

“Relax, Eiffel, it’s just a shoplifting alarm,” Liam said. “There’s nothing to worry about, all the cops have been dead for centuries.”

Liam was about to find out how wrong he was. The police weren’t dead -just recharging. Several small chutes in the nearby wall popped open, deploying small, discus shaped drones. The floating machines scanned the room before locking on to the pile of dropped clothes.

“Shoplifting,” the drones said, in tinny voices over speakers clearly in need of repairs. “Surrender stolen merchandise. Submit for reeducation.”

“Reeducation?” Giza said. “I’ve never even been to school!”

“Not what that means,” Liam said, as he grabbed Giza by the arm. “Move!”

They ran, and the drones followed. The whirring drones reflected off the helmet of the Scrapper suit as they soared by, until Rush joined the chase as well.