Chase rode on his motorcycle up the dirt path that led far away from the city. Followed close behind him was a silver car, Zone Technologies brand on the license plate, with Alice driving pretty smoothly.
Arriving at the Zone Technologies warehouse, tall steel walls loomed overhead, surrounding the facility with cameras watching their every move. He could see tiny strands of electricity occasionally flashing at the top, like barbed wires, and probably on the walls too. As expected, though, there weren't any security guards. Instead, he saw small drones floating around. One of which came towards them as they approached.
“Chase Silverwing,” a robotic voice spoke.
“Yes, Marcus Zone sent me,” he said, then gesturing to Alice. “And this is my apprentice, Alicia Azerasaki.” Blue lights suddenly shot out of a camera on the wall, making Alice flinch, but Chase simply stood impassively. The lights scanned each of them up and down before turning green.
“Access Granted.” One part of the wall fizzled as the electric field froze and then the steel wall opened up like sliding doors.
“Woah, this is pretty cool,” Alice said.
“Don’t touch anything. I’m not sure how thorough Marcus’s security system really is, but if it's anything like this, then it’ll be safer if we do only what we need to.”
“Got it.”
They got back into their vehicles and parked inside the walls, the steel doors closing behind them.
Walking around the area, Chase and Alice did their sweep. The facility was very simple, a wide concrete area with long rows of buildings that were connected, and each building had a large, secure metal door.
"Pretty empty, huh?" Alice said behind Chase as he scanned the area. He counted five vaults, all of which were probably filled with highly advanced technology, especially weapons—which was why he needed to make sure these things were secure enough to prevent the Technician from getting into them. "Everything seems secure. We should get to a hiding place."
"What's in these things?"
"Various kinds of Aurainium technology. I think I remember Marcus telling me each vault had its own category of tech."
"Like what?"
"Blasters, armor, vehicles, explosives, and robots."
"Cool, but no windows on any of these though."
"No need for them, plus it'd be better if any potential robbers didn't know what they were stealing."
Alice looked around and then pointed to a ladder that stuck out from the side of one of the buildings. "Hey, we could hide up on top of the buildings."
He followed her direction and nodded.
Night fell over the Vault, as Chase and Alice had situated themselves on the roof of one of the buildings. Chase was watching like a hawk over the facility, looking for the slightest sign of the Technician; Alice was poking at her bracelets and testing the various gadgets. She pressed a button which activated a green light and seemingly nothing else. "Green light?" But as she said that, Chase could hear her words echo in his skull.
"Could you not speak into your CD so close to me?" He said annoyingly.
"Oh, sorry…" Alice lifted her finger off the button and started testing other buttons. "What's a CD?"
"Communication Device, a staple in most of Marcus's stuff. And also grappling hooks."
"Grappling hooks, huh? Oh, so I guess this CD is what I'll use to talk to you while you're fighting the Technician?"
"Preferably."
"Hmm, what does this do?" She pressed another button which shot out a sparkling dart from the bracelet. "So that's what those were."
"Try not to give away our position."
"Mhm," she pressed another button which caused a sharp blade to slide out, nearly poking her finger. "Hidden blade, that's definitely not dangerous. Wait, does he want me to--?"
"Self defense only." Chase said sharply.
"Right, of course, self-defense…" Alice examined the silver blade and the rest of the bracelet. "You know, I've never had anything like this before." The moonlight reflected off the blade and gave her eyes a pretty twinkle, and Chase was still sitting in watch. The weird thing was, she seemed to recognize the sitting position he was in. Legs curled under him, with his hands laid still on top of his thighs, and his back was perfectly straight, but he was completely still, with his usually glowing rings only a dim, almost invisible light. Although, the mechanical parts probably help with the not moving part.
"Interesting pose," Alice commented.
"It helps with stealth and concentration," Chase said.
"Yeah, I know. An advanced Altarian meditation technique, but I'm pretty sure it only works with certain clothing. How do you know about it?"
"I had a good teacher."
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"You had an Altarian teacher?"
"Something like that."
"Hmm, you went to Highrise right?"
"Yes."
"What's it like?"
"...Tough. But you'll make a lot of memories." Chase said quietly. Another vision flooded in with two human hands in front of him, both holding long daggers, sparring against the champion. Hits were sent, and blocked by the other one's blade, trading one for one. One was faster but the other one stronger, as he soon found himself knocked down by a powerful strike. He went from facing his opponent to quickly facing the sky as his body hit the grassy ground. But then a hand was outstretched towards him and he saw the smirking face of the champion. "You good mate?"
Chase snapped out his thoughts as Alice shook him by the shoulder. "Chase?"
"What?" He said.
"You good?" Alice said. "Did you even hear what I said?"
"..."
It was her turn to sigh now. "Oh well, I was going to ask if you got any cool stories about your time at Highrise?"
"Not really."
"You sure? You must have some stories."
"..."
"Fine, how about this. I'll share one of my stories and you can share one of equal value. How's that sound?"
"Sure." He said.
"Great! Hmm, let's see…" She looked up at the night sky, trying to think of any good stories to tell, preferably something personal since she also wanted to know a little more about him.
She looked up at the night sky, although the clouds were blocking most of it, she could still see some stars peeking through. “I used to have a friend, kind of a best friend actually. Her name was Rena. Here in Horizon City, where I’d be around a lot when dad was out, we usually would meet up. She and I would always go outside and stargaze and cloud gaze. We were…almost inseparable.” She chuckled. “There was a time when we pulled a prank on Xu, my disgruntled babysitter when I was five. He was being really strict with me, like not wanting me to go out, giving me tons of homework, and so, Rena set a trap to distract him so we could escape to the city. Don’t worry it was pretty harmless, just his favorite pie to the face. I led him to the trap and she sprung it! He. Was. Livid! And we ran off as fast as our little legs would take us! You can probably tell I got an ear full when I went back though. Ah man was she a bad influence, you’d hate her, but she was fun and I think I got my positive attitude from her.”
“Way more than positive,” Chase said.
“Was that a joke?” Alice said, eyes raised with a sly smile.
He quickly looked away, embarrassed. “No.”
She laughed, “Yeah it was! Face it, I’m getting through to you!”
“Just continue your story.”
She calmed herself down, lying on the metal roof of the vault, and hands folded behind her head, staring up at the sky. “Well, there isn’t much else. We just hung out with each other as usual, complained about our lives, and…” Alice’s voice went quiet.
Chase turned around, slowly. “And?”
“...I’m…not sure, actually.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, we kind of just stopped seeing each other. She never came by to see me like she used to and my dad started giving more work, so I was too busy to see her. Then, I think I remember being sad and never being able to find her again.”
“Did you do anything about it?”
“I told dad about it, and they looked for her. But after a while, they never found her, and he told me that she had left the city with her parents, which was weird since I’m pretty sure she didn’t have parents. And if she did…then why didn’t she tell me or that she was leaving?” Alice’s voice suddenly cracked, which confused her. She wiped away tears that were starting to form and sat up, taking a few deep breaths. “Sorry, I–I didn’t mean for this to get so sad.”
“Do you really believe she just left?”
“I don’t know. Dad showed me records of her and how she left the city with two other adults, they both looked like her parents, at least if they were. And it’s been years since then. I was too young to do anything about it and I just kind of accepted it. But thinking about it now, something must have happened to her. I’ve told myself that she’s fine, that she just…left without saying goodbye for some good reason...”
He stayed silent, not sure what to say. This was oddly familiar to him, having friends and then losing them over time. Although, in his case, it wasn’t because of time. “You’re getting stronger now,” Chase managed to say. “Unlike before, you’re older and can do more now. You can prevent what happened to Rena from happening to anyone else, or if you want, we can do what we can to find her.”
Alice looked at him, stunned. “I told you she’s perfectly fine…but you’d really help me look for her if she wasn’t?”
“I…I’m not sure if I’ll be able to do much. But if something really did happen to her, then someone should help her or at least learn the truth.”
“Yeah, I know. Another reason why I need this. To be a Guardian, so I can do something,” Alice wiped away the rest of her tears. “Anyways, that’s my story. Now it's your turn.”
Chase sat in silence, there was one story that could match hers, probably even more, but he didn't want to, he spent so long trying to forget, trying to just let go, but all those red memories just came flooding back. The sounds of agonized screams, bodies dropping in front of him, he wanted to help, he should’ve done something. But it was too late now. The horrid face of a friend threatened to attack him, to rip out his heart, and he couldn’t bear to look at it again. He needed a distraction.
Alice couldn't see it, all she saw was his hard exterior, sitting still with dark glass hiding his face, but inside was a bunch of broken glass swirling around in a chaotic sea of gray. Luckily, something else snapped him out as something set off a silent alarm in his head.
"He's here," he grimaced, but with some relief.
"The Technician?" Alice whispered as she crawled closer to the edge to get a better look. They both watched as a mechanical figure in tethered clothing hopped over the walls and walked over to one of the vaults. Drones tried attacking it, but they were easily destroyed or absorbed. They were more like mosquitoes getting swatted by the Technician and it didn’t take long for him to reach the front of a vault. Placing a hand on the iron door, the Technician stood still for a few seconds before making a swift motion with his hands. Chase stared in horror as the vault's security door flashed a few lights and turned. The Technician had effortlessly breached the city's toughest security system. "No," he whispered, clutching his sword hilt.
"So much for security," Alice said.
"I'm going in," Chase stood up as the Technician already walked inside to do what he could only guess.
"You're going to tell me that story afterwards right?" Alice said, but Chase was already running into the vault. "Oh, well…" she laid back down on the vault and watched the events unfolding before her, activating her bracelet's CD.
It was dark inside the vault and Chase had to turn on his mask's night vision to see, but he also dimmed down his glowing rings to not completely give his position away. This vault seemed to be the robot one, as there were rows of robot soldiers standing on the sides, with a few drones on higher places, but the most valuable ones were clearly the three giant mechs at the very end of the vault. Two identically large bipedal mechs were standing on the right and left sides of the vault, with powerful blasters raised to fire. But in between those two mechs was a giant, four-spider-legged machine built for war. Having two ominous machine guns at its sides and a giant Aurainium Amber cannon mounted on its head, and standing before it was the Technician—looking straight at it with what could only be a very-interested gaze.