One of the few things Luce missed about living in Dogon were the showers. Having a shower head to spray water at you instead of a bucket and scoop was weirdly comforting. Sure, there were a few places on the other side with the same functions, but they usually had to have specific situations, like wealth enough to buy a pressure tank or a water source high enough in altitude.

As she turned off the lukewarm shower, she stepped out from behind the curtain and grabbed a towel off the rack.

The bathroom was crude. An old disinfection chamber turned toilet and shower. The walls were repainted with waterproof white, and the floor flattened with a thick blue tarp. The pipes were reconnected from the former bathroom which had caved in, and water from everywhere flooded the floor, draining slowly out a hole in the wall where it ran outside to be turned to steam and power the generators. Cut off from the grid, Luce had been impressed with how much energy the rag-tag group of dissident had managed to recycle into the thermal generator outside, enough to give them a relatively comfortable existent.

She switched into a fresh brown shirt and black pants, having left her other clothes in the dryer. She walked out while scrubbing the last of the water out of her hair.

Out in the long corridor, some parts of the steel plates that lined the wall had been pulled out for scraps, showing the ugly concrete and rebars underneath. Shou and his group had definitely used the place with a focus on utility over fashion. She walked down the hallway and entered the first room on the right.

The room was one of the last few bunks to have been kept intact with beds, lights, and ventilation. Of the 24 in the buildings, 19 of them had been scrapped for parts. Inside, Adelle sat on one of two opposing beds. Opposite her was the third member of Shou's party.

Upon noticing Luce, the young woman stood up. Still in her work overalls, sleeves tied at her waist, the woman's white singlet was stained with patches of oil and grease. A red cap hung from a carabiner at her belt's side; Her brunette long hair released in a ponytail behind. Her face was freckled and straight. Her bright brown eyes absorbed light under the fluorescent bulb.

"Hi!" she greeted with an outreached hand. "I don't think I've properly introduced myself to you yet. I'm Miu Hotaru."

"Lucinda. You can call me Luce." Luce shook her hand. "Arnold talked about you. You're Shou's girlfriend."

"W-what?" she stammered. "I am not! I'm just... I'm Reggie's mechanic."

"Uh huh..." Luce replied, grinning sceptically. She walked up to Adelle. "What have you got there?"

The elf held up a carbon arrow tipped with what was shaped like a small can. "Trick arrows."

Miu added, "We had some lying around. I was going to scrap them for parts, but I think she'd get better use out of them."

Luce noticed that Adelle had her belt and quiver on the bed, though the container was now facing the left side instead of the right. A new black polyester quiver now dangled at her right leg side of her knee.

Luce asked, "You can shoot from your left?"

"I can shoot from both sides," Adelle replied. "I'm just more accurate with my right, but I'm faster with my left, so the trick arrow goes to my right and my normal arrows on the left."

"Alright," Luce stated plainly. "Whatever makes you happy."

"I'm always happy to be able to break things."

"Where's Josh?"

Adelle replied, "Last I saw, he was talking with Arnold and the Doc. They're trying to work out a deal."

Miu held out the arrows tipped red, blue, and green. "Incendiary, cryo, and acid. If you want to test them, not inside, okay?" She turned to Luce. "By the way, Shou was looking for you."

Adelle piped up, "Do I have to be there as well?"

Miu answered, "If you want."

"I don't. I want to sleep."

Luce sighed. "Sure. I'll go find him."

"He should be on the second floor's work area."

She left the room alone and back out into the corridor.

The warehouse was separated into three large areas. The central corridor had the 24 bunks. Out of the 5 rooms available, three were for Shou, Arnold, and Miu. Josh was given a single room and Luce and Adelle shared the last one. The east end of the building was the garage - an old storage house that had been fully salvaged and decked to keep vehicles. Arnold kept his cars in the front portion while Reggie stayed in the larger rear.

Luce headed up the corridor and turned left into the west wing.

Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

The old hangar converted workshop had a collapse area to the far end, though patched with sheets of tarps and reinforced with the steel plates torn from the corridor. Salvaged parts scattered the left side, opposite the workshop area which was split by a walkway between the first and second floor. The final right corner was the cybernetics bay where Shou made surgical adjustments to his prosthetics.

On the second level, Shou waved from over the railings. "The ladder's over there," he pointed nearer to the entrance.

Luce nodded and headed over. She had mostly glanced over the workshop on her way in. But after the whirlwind orientation and fresh shower, she was in much more of a mood to appreciate the space. They had gathered much more equipments than she had expected of the rag-tag team. Without even including the fully stocked cybernetics bay, there were industrial drills, giant sheet cutters, and even a banged up but still functional ion extractor.

As she climbed the ladder she asked, "How did you get all these stuff?"

"Neat, right? Don't be too impressed. The first few seasons here were tough. We spent a long time rewiring the whole place to work." He walked over to the ladder and extended a hand. She took it and he pulled her up the last steps. "Arnold went out for jobs and supplies while Miu and I stayed behind to fix the place, our little Hideaway. She's great with tools and all the makeshift machineries. It also helps to have a giant do the heavy lifting."

The second floor seemed to be their own personal workspaces. It was immediately apparent which were whose. The one closest to the ladder was a long table filled with gun parts, reloading press, powder scales and dispensers, amongst other things. A dozen of empty grenade shells labelled with coloured tapes sat in the row. The middle table was neat and kept. Tools hung from the wall with what looked like a large engine sitting on in the middle, waiting to be worked on. On the far end in a mess was Shou's bench. Parts were left strewn across the floor and table. A small pile pushed away from Miu's station meant the girl tried to clean-up the place at some point but gave up. A cola dispenser set on a nightstand next to the railing.

Shou grabbed Miu's chair and pulled it towards his. "Cola?" he offered.

"No thanks," Luce waved away.

He shrugged and proceeded to fill up his personal bottle from the dispenser. "So, Arnold told me you wanted to poach my doctor."

"It doesn't have to be your doctor," Luce replied, sitting down. "Just one not afraid of travelling across a war-torn wasteland to go to a place that they may never come back from. Also, must be a neurosurgeon."

"That sounds very much like my doctor. You said she might not come back?"

"She might not want to. We could bring her back across the Helm. But getting all the way back here to Dogon is another story."

"What's it like on the other side?" Shou asked.

"It's a nice place," Luce admitted. "You can see the sky and everything."

"Is the sky really blue?"

"Oh yeah. So blue. You can come along if you want."

"If I go, will the technology there be able to maintain Reggie?" Her silence answered him. "I thought so. Could tell from your friend and her pointy sticks."

It wasn't just that. He had stated that he wanted to stay. He wanted to fight. The tone he used begged very little room to convince otherwise. In a way, she admired that form of conviction. She always felt more at place holding down a fort than fighting on the lines. Defending your values is easy. Fighting for others is a lot harder.

"What did you want to talk to me about?"

"Your friend can teleport. There's a place that we need to get into."

"Nope."

"You haven't even heard where yet!"

"We're not here to play hero. Not here to save anyone. We just need a doctor."

"Well, you are poaching my doctor."

"We can find another one."

"No, you can't. A doctor, sure. But a neurosurgeon? That's willing to cross the Helm? Yeah. That's going to be a lot harder. Trust me, I've checked." He took a swig of his cola. "Look, the reason why we're not moving out yet is that Reggie's bio-cell is damaged. They took the cell model out of production the minute we ran. There's no way it can survive away from this place."

"There you are!" Josh's voice came from below.

Next to him were Arnold and the brown-haired elven doctor in her brown coat. They proceeded to the ladder and the climb up gave Luce a quiet moment to think.

When the party got to them, Josh asked Shou, "Have you pitched her the deal yet?"

"Doing it now."

"What do you think, Luce?"

"I haven't heard the full story yet."

Doctor Miura chimed in. "Well, you'll have to decide soon. If we want to make a move, we need time. From what Stalewaver here told me, his daughter's conditions will require some complex machineries for the diagnosis and surgery. Problem is, I don't have those."

"I'm hearing a but."

"But," Miura continued expectedly. "Shou's cybernetics lab is stocked with them."

Josh added, "We help then and they help us this time. If we take up this deal, Arnold and I will transport the equipment to Seracue." From his pocket, he took out a piece of paper and waved it. "Eca gave me the locations of some safe houses. We can use them to store the stuff while Adelle break into Trashsite."

"Trashsite?" Luce was surprised to hear the name. "That's where we're going into?"

"Oops," Shou smiled playfully. "Did I not mention that?"

"No, you didn't. That's a maximum security research and storage facility."

"Which is why they will definitely have a bio cell model that can fit Reggie."

"Why not just build a cell store?"

"Sure, we could do that," Shou stated sarcastically. "All we'll need to do is to sneak into Alchemy Labs, another maximum security building, and steal a copy of the manufacturing data and blueprints. Then spend half a year working out the calculations to fit Reggie's old bio-model. Finally, spend money we don't have to build it a new cell store. Easy. Or, and this is just a crazy idea, we just steal a new bio cell."

"If we do this," Luce affirmed. "They won't hold back any longer with coming after you."

Arnold added, "We know. Josh offered to take us across. Even Reggie; we can bring it over in parts."

Luce sighed. "How are we doing this? I haven't agreed to anything yet, but I go where Adelle goes on this."

Shou agreed. "Fine. You, Adelle, Miu, and I will head to the Trashsite. Josh, Arnold, and Miura will get the medical equipment up north. We need to time it so that once we get back here we'll meet up with our Guides on the same day before making our last trip north."

Arnold noted, "We're all leaving with you guys so my credit's your credit. We'll pile our resources for the journey out and make it a one-way trip."

There was a pause as they waited for Luce to decide. She thought about procuring the equipments herself, but they had neither the fundings, connections, nor time to do so, what with being wanted in both countries and having no real base of operations. It seemed a fair trade. A life for a life. Reggie for Misti's.

"Fine. We have deal." Luce scoffed. "One-way trip. That's what I said last time yet here I am."