The sight was surreal. Alongside Nōne, Shock stood on a gravelly cliff just outside the corruption yard, looking down into a huge cave.

It was thick with dusty, red fog, and lined with rocky, grey crags around its perimeter. Down a few dozen feet was a vast plateau dotted with several robots drilling into bright, blue mineral deposits of some sort, and a few hundred feet past that was a tall, brown fortress, sitting on a rocky spire above what looked like an abyss.

She looked to her sides. Along the cliff she stood on, there seemed to be a path leading to more doors similar to the one she just exited – presumably, more corruption yards? – a wide, circular opening in the wall, and a narrow path down to the plateau below.

“Where are we?” Shock asked.

“Underground Zynima. All of this... is Upsilon's home.”

It was hard for Shock to believe that he just gave her a straight answer. “I've... never seen this before.”

“It's for the best. You'll find nothing but hostility and despair here.”

“What do you mean?”

“You see those machines mining at the cyrite deposits down there, yes?” Nōne pointed at them.

“Yeah?”

“Do you think they're working of their own accord?”

Shock sighed. “Great. More zombies.”

“Yes, and no. They're not corrupt, but they've been stripped of their will. What were sentient, amicable robots are now mindless slaves.”

“Who... who the fuck would–”

She caught herself. Of course she knew who would. The person behind Tangent. The person kidnapping Trivo. The person controlling Lavil. The person trying to kill her and her friend. Upsilon, undoubtedly... whoever that was. Her own sorrow was quickly replaced by anger.

And, in that anger, something sparked in her mind. An epiphany, almost. A new resolve, driven by fury and vengeance.

Shock lifted her head up and faced Nōne.

“Tell me, TV-face. Are you as sick and tired of this as I am?”

“Define “this,” robot-face.”

“You know damn well what I mean by “this.” All these robots coming after us. This whole serial killer bullshit. All these machines turned into slaves. Just... Upsilon! Are you this done with Upsilon too, or is it just me?!”

“Keep your voice down, dear.” Nōne turned and faced the plateau again. “You, of all people, should know that I desire nothing more than Upsilon's death.”

“So it is Upsilon behind all this, isn't it.”

“Yes. I regret nothing more than the day I let him escape, all those years ago.”

“Well, we'll just have to make up for it now.”

“It won't be easy.”

“I don't care,” Shock grumbled.

“We might not succeed, either.”

“I don't care.”

“...I see.” Nōne turned and began walking down the narrow path down to the plateau.

“Hey! First, are you going to show me where Aural is?”

“Follow me.”

Shock did just that. “You are going to find her first, right?”

“You should have more faith in me, dear. We're not going to kill Upsilon with just the two of us. Whether you wanted to or not, finding Aural Automaton would be my first objective.”

Shock growled, but kept her mouth shut.

She kept her eyes on the mining robots as she walked down the cliffside with Nōne. She wasn't sure of how she should act in this place – should she go full stealth mode? Would those robots even pay attention to her? Would they attack her? If the TV-head was telling her to keep her voice down, stealth was probably the best option.

And then, something occurred to Shock at just that moment.

“Hey, Nōne,” she whispered.

“Mmm?”

“Do you know who Upsilon is?”

“Yes.”

Shock's eyes went wide. “You mean, you knew this whole time, but didn't tell us?”

“You never asked, darling.”

Shock paused for a moment. “Well, who is it?!”

“Upsilon is a single robot that calls himself Magnus.”

“Magnus! Magnus?” Shock chanted, racking her brain to find a name to match the face. She slowed her pace after a few seconds of thought. “I don't know who it is. Damnit.”

“He's not the only robot in Zynima with that name. It's not exactly uncommon. That said, I highly suspect he uses more than one name.”

“Fuck, okay.” Shock put a hand on her chin.

They approached the bottom of the path down to the edge of the plateau, landing them only a dozen or so feet away from the miners. From what Shock could see, to the left, there was another rocky path that went down the edge of the plateau, leading towards the fortress.

“Your friend landed over in this direction.” Nōne quickly hopped over to the right, hugging the cliff's wall. “Those drudges won't hesitate to attack us if you dawdle,” he continued. “Make haste.”

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Shock glanced between the plateau workers and the TV-head, apprehensive about running out in the open so close to them. Against her intuition, she trusted his judgment and ran along with him.

One of the nearby miners, tall and adorned with orange and white lights, stopped what they were doing and looked up at Shock as she ran by. Watching. Staring.

“Shh, shh,” she hissed at it, speeding up to catch up with Nōne. She watched it carefully as she ran. Eventually, as she grew distant enough, it lowered its head and resumed digging at the ground. Shock drew a sigh of relief.

Running beside the cliff face, their distance to the plateau grew. They both slowed down; in the side of the rocky wall, only a few steps away, was a rickety, metal door.

“Is this where we're headed?” Shock asked between breaths.

“Yes.” Nōne stepped up to the door and slowly pushed it open, sending terrible creaks out from the rusted hinges. He looked inside, scanning the room.

“It's clear.” He pushed the door open and stepped through, inviting Shock inside before closing it behind them (with more terrible creaks).

“A storeroom?” Shock mused. She found herself in a tall, grey room, well-lit by a pair of stand-up floodlights. Resting against the wall to the right were tons of rusty crates piled on top of each other, and the wall just to her left had a graph of some sort hanging from it, along with a colourful poster just beside it. On the floor, bits of scrap metal were scattered around, and on the ceiling above was a wide-open chute of some sort.

She looked at the poster on the wall... and immediately regret it.

It was a piece of merchandise promoting Viniko's Tour of Light. Adorning most of the page was the superstar Viniko himself in an action pose with his band members, and the bottom section listed the tour dates and locations.

Shock looked away. A familiar chill of despair flooded through her body.

“How dare he. How fucking dare he,” Shock growled.

Nōne turned to her.

“Upsilon... Magnus... has NO right–”

Shock ripped the poster off the wall, crumpled it up, and threw it on the floor.

“He kills Viniko then has the balls to hang up a poster of him like this?! No. Fuck that.”

“To be sure, dear... Tangent killed Viniko. We have no evidence to suggest that Upsilon commanded him to do it.”

“I don't give a shit.” Shock was fuming. “Upsilon is still the one who ultimately caused his death.”

“You have a point, I suppose.” As cool and collected as ever, Nōne started opening the boxes on top of the big pile.

“Yeah, you know what?” Shock blurted, speed-walking over beside Nōne. “Fuck his shit.” She pried open a box and started rummaging too. “I don't give a damn if this is Upsilon's stuff.”

But, all she found was a pile of rocks in the crate.

“Seems like this is a cyrite storage room now. Nothing useful to us at the moment.” Nōne closed his box.

“Seriously? Is this where cyrite comes from?”

“I'd hazard a guess that it is.”

“Fantastic. Slave labour is what circulates cyrite. I'm starting to realize why ignorance is bliss.”

“It'd be prudent of you to steel yourself down here. There's no telling how bad it's gotten since I last visited. However, more to the point of coming here... I don't see Aural Automaton.”

“She was supposed to be here...?”

“Yes. She would have landed here if she didn't land in the corruption yard with us.”

“Are you saying she might be in the corruption yard?! We need to go back!” Shock raised her voice again.

“No. Did you see anything else alive in there, aside from those machines we gave a coup de grâce? I'm sorry, darling, but if she landed in there, she's probably dead at this point.”

“No, no...” Shock whined, holding her head. “Don't say things like that...”

“Don't fret so much. Chances are she landed here, but simply got up and left.”

“Got up and left to where? The only way to go is to through the slave field out there!”

“Not quite. Follow me, would you?” Nōne walked over to the creaky door and opened it.

Without a word, Shock followed closely. The two backtracked across the base of the cliff – grabbing the attention of that same drudge for a few seconds again – before ending up at the bottom of the path that led down from the corruption yard.

Nōne sat down on a big rock at the base of the path. “Liberating these robots from their lives as slaves would be... fulfilling, but it would bring far too much attention to us. Plus, you don't seem like you're fit for combat right now.”

At that point, Shock realized she had none of her equipment with her – not even her beams. As terrifying as the thought was, she was relying on Nōne just to help her stay alive.

“See that convenient pathway down on the edge of the plateau?” Nōne continued, pointing to the rocky path Shock had spotted earlier on the left side of the plateau. “They used to use that route to deliver cyrite to the castle. Judging by the crates in the store-room... seems like that path is all but abandoned now. Whatever the case may be, it'll bring us to the castle, and that's probably where Aural Automaton is.”

“...How do you know all this? Do I want to know?”

“I've been here a lot. Upsilon's not an easy fellow to track, despite this being his “home.””

Shock started running off towards the path, keeping her distance from the miners. “Come on. I'm going to find her.”

“Indeed.” For the first time, Nōne got up and followed Shock instead of the other way around.

As the path curved down around the plateau, it quickly became narrower and narrower. Shock was still able to run, but decided not to; only a few feet to her left was a drop into what looked like a foggy, endless pit. She didn't want to take unnecessary risks.

And, as the path continued, Shock could see a clean, artificial alcove in the side of the plateau, supported by white beams and scaffolding. Just past it was a long, metal bridge with no supports that led to the bottom of the fortress. Scary.

Shock crept along the rest of the path, peeking around to make sure there was nobody in the alcove. With every step she took she saw more and more of the alcove – a schedule posted on a smooth, white wall, a couple windowed doors leading deeper into the plateau, and a complete lack of robots.

Both bad and good. No miners or sequencers, but... where's Aural?! She barely resisted the urge to call out for her.

Footsteps behind her. “Perhaps in there~?” Nōne's voice quietly sang from behind her as a gloved hand entered her peripheral vision, pointing to the doors.

“Yeah.” Shock checked the bridge and the path behind her just to be sure, then she crept up to the door on the right. She peeked through it...

It was a furnace room. A bright glow illuminated the room: all she could see was a shovel, several bricks of coal, piles of rocks (cyrite ore?), and a work bench with some bright blue cyrite ingots on it. No Aural Automaton in sight.

Shocks breaths became heavier and faster. Where was Aural? If she wasn't here...?!

She walked over to the other door.

“Oh, fuck.” She scanned what she could see of the well-lit room through the window.

Several stations, all with dozens of coloured wires and little black tubes protruding from each one, lined the walls. They were definitely not recharge stations. These... were different. Hooked up to each one was a robot with similarly coloured lights as the rest of the miners, but these ones all had models of different size and shape. Real citizens of Zynima. All of them asleep... or dead.

And, in one of the last stations against the left wall, a familiar model. Aural Automaton.

“Aural!” Shock yanked on the door handle, and the door swung open, smacking against the wall. She ran inside, over to Aural.

“Aural!” she called out again, crouching down in front of her friend. Aural's face showed no lights; Shock couldn't help but fear the worst. Only then did she notice that Aural was hooked up to the machine just like the others, via the panel in her arm – the wires and tubes from the unidentified station were connected there.

Shock ripped them out immediately. Black fluid dripped out from the tubes she yanked out of Aural's arm. It was all too familiar: the same vile sludge from the corruption yard.

“No, no, no... Aural? Come on, wake up, pal. Wake up!” Shock pat her on the side of her head a few times. “Wake up!!”

Her body was trembling. Aural wasn't waking up. The black liquid... no. Shock wouldn't believe it. She couldn't believe it.

“Aural, come on... don't do this to me, pal...” Shock panted. “Come on...”

...

A faint light shone from Aural's body. Her lights were slowly glowing to life.

“Aural!” Shock shouted, patting her on the cheek again.

Aural beeped in surprise as her face turned on, showing two, red, almond-shaped eyes. She looked up.

“Shock...?” she mumbled.

Shock laughed and sighed in relief. “Oh my god, Aural...”

She leaned down and hugged Aural, who seemed quite confused. But, a couple seconds later, the hug was returned.

“Hey, what's going on?” Aural asked. “Where am I?”

“Underground Zynima. Upsilon's base,” Nōne explained from the doorway, arms crossed. “It's good to have you with us.”