"Which way do you think we go to find what we're looking for?" Micheal asked, nerves obvious in his voice.

"I don't know," I told him. "The plan right now, is that we look into finding anything and we interface our Cybers for a map or blueprint of the place. From there we look at things like large open spaces or temprature controlled areas where a server or large computer might be stored."

"Okay," he nodded. "That sounds easy enough."

"It always starts that way," I told him. "Never stays that way for long."

Before he could speak and ask what I meant, I moved forward and made my way to the stairway that lead upward.

"Why are we going up?" he asked as he followed.

"This is the ground floor," I explained. "From what little I know of Rif'nay'fex culture, the ground floor was used as a place to gather for breaks in work and stuff like that. We want to go to the next floor or higher to find a computer we can interface with."

"But there's no power," he pointed out. "How can we interface with something that doesn't have power?"

"Our Cybers and nanites gather the minor electrical charge that we produce and use it to power their own functions," I explained. "They can use it in a larger discharge to power things that are unpowered."

"Oh, neat," he said.

"Also we have batteries in the plates just above our asses on our lower backs," I told him.

"Oh. Less neat," Micheal said.

"Best place for them actually," I said. "For as much as we move around, there they can rest comfortably and they're far enough away from our heads and hearts that they aren't hit hard enough to crack the casing on them."

"How many times did things go wrong or you need some power before you put those in?" he asked.

"None," I answered. "This is the first time I'm using them in all the years I've been fighting Scourge."

"You're joking right?" he asked.

"Nope, most of the time we're on planets that are either undeveloped, or they've had Scourge there so long they've gone wild again," I explained.

"Here we are," I said looking around the floor we'd just walked onto. "Looks like a lobby, they always have a connection to the building at large. Bonus points to security terminals. Let's get to looking."

With a nod to me, Micheal began to move through the lobby and search for a computer that would serve our needs best. As he did that, I took it upon myself to keep an eye out for any Scourge that might have followed us or already been in the building before we arrived. I found none.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

"You'd think that with the whole planet covered in Scourge, they'd be everywhere," I muttered to Cai as I followed after Micheal at a slower pace while looking for ambushes.

"Perhaps they are merely unwilling to go so far into the cities," my Cyber said.

"Maybe," I said as Micheal found a computer and began to interface with it. "Should we see about helping him?"

"Paladin Jones and his Cyber are more than capable of accomplishing the required objective," Cai assured me, using the name Micheal had switched to finally.

"I've got it," he finally spoke up. "Sending the blueprint to your Cyber. Hopefully, he'll be able to work out what's what with it, cause Tia can't make heads or tails of it."

"Where too next, Cai?" I asked as I looked around for anything that might have snuck up on us.

"The basement levels," he answered. "I am seeing a large amount of temprature control units and a large open space that would be ideal for keeping servers and data in optimal conditions."

"And down we go," I said for Micheal's benefit as I lead the way to the stairs.

"Are all missions like this?" he asked as we descended the stairs. "Sneaking from one place to another and looking for answers to the problem?"

"No," I told him. "We don't often sneak around, and we usually have the answer or we are the answer. The closest I've come to this, was back when Earth was hit by the Scourge. A Warden race was wiped out in the process because they were fed to the Scourge and their ship was sent to crash into Earth. We were making our way through a ruined city and we went into a library, looking for the Queen of the Horde. The new one anyway; the Screechers had taken out the old one. We entered the library and some of us went one way and the other went another way. There weren't many Scourge in that library and I was on edge, jumping at shadows and trying not to lash out whenever the people with me stepped on papers or books and made noise. Finally, we made it down to the basement and we found where all the Scourge were. Guarding the Queen's escape route."

"What happened after that?" Micheal asked.

"I was younger and dumber then," I said. "So I thought it would be a good idea to engage over twenty Scourge with only three people. Nearly got someone killed doing that."

"They're okay though, right?" he asked.

"Oh absolutely," I nodded. "Smith reached the end of his twenty year contract with us and he's been working in Deva Security forces, keeping peace ever since. Found himself a pretty Aasimar wife and has about ten kids now."

"Have you visited him since then?" Micheal asked.

"No," I admitted. "For as much as I try to take care of my Nephilim, I don't know all of them well enough to make house-calls. If I dropped by Smith's place unannounced then I might give him a heart attack or something. He only really did the one mission with me, so he probably thinks I forgot him by now."

"That's a little sad," Micheal said.

"That's the burden that comes with being in command," I answered. "We meet people that make an impression on us and if we don't keep them beside us, it doesn't matter how many similarities there are between us, they fade to the background and think that we've forgotten them because we have more pressing matters."

"Sounds like there are others you'd like to reconnect with," he said.

"There are," I said as we entered the basement level that Cai had pointed us to. "Some of them are too far gone for that though. Let's finish this so we can get back to the search."

"Yes, sir," Micheal said, striding past me into the floor that looked disturbingly like a maze of server housings and computers.

Finally, after several minutes of walking through the floor, Micheal stopped and began to interface with the entire databank that we were standing in before.

"Weird," he muttered. "Tia says that there's no signs of any deletions. They even left where they went in here."

"And where did they go?" I asked.

"Some star that doesn't have any planets orbitting it," he said. "There's nothing else about what they planned. Just this exodus to that star."

"Then that's where we're going once we finish up with the other planet," I said. "Let's get the others and head out."