There was a bug with too many legs that just dropped from above them and nearly landed directly on TO’s head. They yelped and stumbled backwards, only to crash into Tham.

“Oh, for- It’s just a bug!” Tham snapped as turned on his flashlight and located the offending insect. In the light, it scurried away and burrowed into the ground. “Come on. We don’t have time-” He pushed To in the back, urging them forward, “Move.”

“It could have been a dangerous insect.” TO protested, their ears flushed as they pressed on, making their way through the narrow tunnels. In some places, the tunnels arched up much higher than they needed to, because of a cave in, or because of some issue when they were digging the tunnel. Well, it didn't matter; the extra space above them didn’t make TO feel any better. It was too narrow to fly, and seeing the walls reach up above them made them feel like there was just more to fall on them later.

It thankfully didn’t take too long to get from where they were to the cavern that GiDi pointed out on the map; the one which was supposedly right under the tunnel that the Arkanian authorities were raiding; unused and uninhabited.

Or so TO thought. As the walls expanded out to the cavern, they saw a pile of old crates stacked up in the center - old enough to have been here for a white some time, but not old enough to have belonged here when they were in use. Dust and dirt covered the crates, but despite that, they could still clearly see the letter J painted on the side in black paint.

“Fuck.” Tham hissed as he rushed forward, his tail leaving a long time in years of dirt as he approached the boxes, “Fuck me dead. We could have used this.”

That was a new explicative, and one TO was certain they’d remember. They approached Tham, keeping their distance from their tail. “What is it?” They asked.

“Supplies.” He snapped. There was a dusty crowbar set atop one of the crates, so Tham just took it and opened up the box. Inside, there were jars and jars of powders and preserves, along with many vacuum sealed packages.

“A few years old.” Tham muttered, “But most of this is still good. The powders for sure. And now-” He growled, and threw the crowbar to the ground, “Damn it, Jason.”

“I thought you all liked Jason?” TO asked, backing away from Tham. Pearla had told him not to worry, and that he wouldn’t hurt anyone, but right now Tham had a crowbar in reach, a multi-gun in his hands, and most importantly, TO knew that Tham didn’t like them.

They didn’t want to be too close when he lost his temper.

“I Do. Did.” his tail suddenly fell limp on the ground, “but he was a paranoid one. He had crates of supplies hidden in the tunnels, just in case we needed them.”

“... and he never told you?”

“No, because he was worried. What if someone got caught? What if someone turned against us? We needed to have supplies just in case, and I got that.” He looked at the roughly painted J on the rough wood of the crate, then leaned over, resting his hands on the edge. “But he could have told someone. Could have trusted one other person. He only told his wife. Of course, he never thought the whole family would get caught up-” His hands clenched at the crate, “Taken by the synths.”

“... You were close to him?” TO asked.

“We all were.” He snapped as he straightened up. “But we could have used these supplies months ago. We could use them now!” He slammed his fists on the edge of the crate. “But now, they’re going to get wrecked by the water.”

TO frowned as they slowly approached the crate, peeking inside once more, “... but it’s all sealed, isn’t it?” TO asked.

“Yeah. it’s sealed.”

“Then the water won’t affect it, so long as it’s not broken.” TO said, “Couldn’t someone come down later and retrieve it?”

“There’s going to be repairs going on here afterwards for a while.” Tham said, “And the damage we’re about to cause is going to break most of them.”

“Then we move them.” TO said, looking around, “There are a bunch more tunnels that lead off in different directions; couldn’t we hide them in one of those tunnels? They’d be safer there, and since we’re getting Lendulin out of the tunnels anyway, couldn’t she retrieve them later?”

Tham was silent, his tail twitching as he considered this. Suddenly, he stood upright and checked his communicator.

“... there’s a tunnel nearby that dips down.” he said after glancing over the map. “It’ll flood quickly, and if they send people down to look around while repairing the tunnel, then they’re likely to avoid that one. There’s another exit on the other side we can access. We could retrieve the jars from there right away and then seal up the tunnel!” He sent off another message on the communicator, and a ‌moment later, they had a response.

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“Vik says that we have a few minutes before it’s too late to collapse the tunnel.” He said, putting the communicator away in the pocket of his long, worn out, black button down top. “If we hurry, we can get some of these crates in the tunnel.”

There was nothing around as far as TO could see to make the job easier; so this would be a matter of pure strength for them.

“Can you lift the entire box?” TO asked.

“If we can get it on my tail.” He said, “I can’t lift it, but if it’s on my tail and you hold it steady, I can move it.”

“Alright.” TO said as they went to the other side of the crate. As soon as they grabbed it, they could tell from the texture of the uneven wood that they’d end up with more than a few splinters from this, “Tell me what to do.”

======

Though the process was awkward, TO could get the crates on Tham’s tail, and guided them to the tunnel that he had mentioned. It wasn’t hard, per se, but TO had to hold the crate in place while Tham slowly moved to the tunnel, trying very hard not to jostle it too much and cause it to fall over.

In the end, they only took about five minutes to move the crates. Still, that was five minutes out of a very limited time frame. By the time they got the last one hidden in the tunnel, Tham received a message on their communicator.

“They’re nearly here.” Tham said as they hurried back to the cavern. TO chased after them, amazed at how fast they were with just a tail. “We do this now, or we never do it.”

“What way are we going to escape?” TO asked, looking around at all the tunnels. Once they destroyed this cavern, the water from above would flood that tunnel fairly quickly, and TO wasn’t certain that they’d be able to get out in time.

“That one.” Tham said, pointing to a tunnel off to the side. It was higher than the others and was accessible by an old stone pathway. “We’ll go through that one and block it off when we’re done, just in case.”

Another message. Tham cursed, took up the multi-gun, changed the setting to the blaster, and took aim.

“Wait a minute-” TO said, trying to stop them, but Tham fired before TO could say anything else. The recoil pushed Tham back, but the blast only went about twenty feet before it lost its power. It was hard to see if one wasn’t used to it. The blast had no color or clear visual signal, but you could see a warping of the air if you knew what you were looking for.

Tham did not.

“Piss stinking dicks.” he hissed. “Is this damn thing broken? I felt that, but nothing happened!”

“It did.” TO said, “but the blasting function on that has a distance limit. The ceiling of this cavern is too high for it to reach!”

Another curse from his lips and he turned to glare at TO, “You could have told me that before now!”

“I thought you knew!”

Another message dinged on his communicator. Another curse. He looked up, trying to figure out some way he could quickly get to where he needed.

“... Give me the gun?” TO said.

“What? No!” He held the gun out. “I see… this is just some trick, isn’t it? The safety is on this thing or something.” Even as he spoke, he looked at the gun, as though checking it. “You just want the gun so you can kill me.”

“GiDi wants me to keep you safe.” TO hissed, their ears pinning back, “So no, I’m not-”

“Oh, so if it weren’t for that, you would?”

“NO! I know this may surprise you, but I’m not a fan of killing people!”

“So you just felt terrible all the times you killed-”

“I’ve never killed-” Their ears flicked back, and they recalled the little child synth in the tank, twitching in their last moments of life. “I’ve never killed any civilians.”

“The fun thing about this is I don’t know if you’re lying or not-” Another message came through on the communicator, followed by another almost right after.

“We’re running out of time.” TO said, “If I have the gun, I can fly up, fire at the ceiling, and then just soar back down to meet you.”

He held the gun before him for another moment, then took out his communicator, and sent off a quick message before passing TO the gun.

“I just sent a message to Vik saying that I’m giving you the gun.” He said, “If I end up dead, they’ll know.”

TO didn’t bother to respond. They took the gun and, with a few flaps of their powerful wings; they were airborne. There was no time to waste arguing with Tham.

They had to collapse the tunnel. GiDi was on the other side, and TO couldn’t let them get caught.