The next day saw only a pittance of exp 1000. Hmm, well sometimes you have to set things up for a bigger score later.

However, Meowser, now with new V.I. Coding was looking swole. Now a massive Electric Blue Tiger throwing data sparks everywhere. Loaded with all kinds of new Ward cutters, and new Wards of his own. Whole new sensory programming. A brand new stealth upgrade. He was light years ahead of where we started, and I was happy with the progress. There was still more to come, but this would do, for now.

He was coming with me, just in case. No telling if Yumi would try to screw with me. Or if I'd get separated and needed some quick support in the ISL.

I was fully geared, even had my hiking pack on, full of ration bars. Almost tasteless rectangles of misery. Last forever though, and tons of calories. I had some extra canteens clipped to my tactical harness. I had the alter the fit of the Kraken's stabilizer, but it wasn't much of a problem. It's not like the weight of all of the equipment was enough to bother me, to begin with.

I locked up, and used a few tricks to be able to tell if anyone had messed with the door upon my return. Everyone knows the hair trick, so they check for it. No, I used the tape setup, along with the old bead gimmick. Doesn't matter if you know em you'll get caught in one or the other.

People must have gotten use to me, nobody was freaking out with me stalking the halls. A welcome change. I guess they had decided I wasn't MCL after all.

Just a Chaser, on the job.

I reached the rendezvous point, ahead of schedule. It was an external maintenance door, on ARC 12-B. I went over it looking for traps, and had Meowser access it's code, grabbing logs. No one had been through here except the target's team. Before that it had been over a year since the last maintenance dive.

So expect lots of bullshit.

Honestly, I was more worried, the Underlord ghouls would get him first, and we wouldn't be able to get his head back.

Of course, for me even if we didn't get the bounty, I'll get exp out of it. Some times watching the numbers go up, puts a smile on my face. Don't tell anyone.

The Ladies arrived shortly after, I finished going through the door logs. They rolled up in a truck. A huge Truck. Looked like it was auditioning to be a landwhale.

"Yumi, Patricia. Good Morning." I rumbled.

"Hi!" Yumi chirped. She was decked out in the same outfit she had on yesterday, blades and handguns everywhere she could fit them. She had some kind of cloak over her shoulders, probably blend cloth. Optical Camo basically.

"Good Morning Victor, call me Trish." Patricia waved. She had on an outfit like Yumi's, less weapons though.

"Okay, call me Vick. I got the door logs if you want to look them over, I don't know any of the Junkers with him."

I scanned around looking to see if anyone was paying attention to us. Nope, same vapid stares and hurried scurrying.

"Yeah, send them to me." Yumi stretched. "I'll give them a quick scan. Hey, That's a nice guard mob you got there." I gave her the data.

"Meowser gets the job done." The V.I. gave a Nya.

Yumi smirked. Tried to hold in her laughter. Yeah, it was funny.

Trish unloaded her Drones and Bot from their behemoth of a truck.

Multi-limbed was the first impression. Insect or Arachnid like was the second. Still, why have less limbs? If you have the ability to control more.

The first drone was an eight legged thing, with two loader arms. Two flex joints divided it in thirds. The two trailing sections were storage beds, for boxes and equipment. I noticed the first of these area was already full of food, water and ammo.

"This is Z0R4 my mule drone, load her up with your extra ammo and supplies." Trish was picking up a firearm similar to the Puma, just far more modded.

"Useful, indeed." I intoned.

The second drone had six legs. Four loading arms and a bulbous rear.

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"This is KL1CK, my swarmer drone." Trish patted it's oversized posterior. I raised an eyebrow, not that she could see it. Kind of surprised.

"Nice." I declared.

Swarmer drones produce small swarmers, tiny spider like drones that mass attack a target and depending on the loadout either explode or shock it. I'd heard of even more exotic setups, but the are often nerfed by GMs in tabletop games. A Botter with one of these is a one person army, highly exploitable.

The third figure was a Bot. Bots are more autonomous than drones, capable of providing support without taking up a lot of the Botter's bandwidth.

This Bot had four legs attached to a ball pivot point. A hefty torso, and six arms. Two with with similar guns to Trish's and the other four with saw blades. Nasty.

"This is Harvey, my Praetorian Bot Mk. III" Trish rested a hand on Harvey's shoulder. "He keeps me safe."

"Proud to Serve!" Harvey exclaimed. "Keep Trish Safe!"

"Nifty!" I was impressed, she had a really good tactical setup.

I started loading ammo boxes on to the last of Z0R4's beds. I cinched everything down.

I whipped the Kraken around. A brand spanking new bayonet mounted six inches below the barrel, and jutting forward almost two feet. Shiny Steel Death.

"I'd suggest never being in front of me. My baby doesn't care, she just cans rusts." I say it in a light voice. Trying to be funny.

Yumi giggled, "You love your Fire?"

"She's the best, I've ever used." Nodding. "Seriously though, not much is getting through my armor, and the Kraken will tear apart anything up to vehicle armor apart. I'm the bullet sponge, and the distraction, do what you need to around me. Things go sideways, I have a few other tricks up my sleeves, but let's hope they aren't needed."

"So we have your back?" Trish almost sounded touched. Almost.

Yumi snorted, "Just try not to get nulled, don't think we can pull you out, you go down."

"Nah, no worries, if I go down do what you think's best, I won't hold it against ya. No Regrets on the path of Chasing Dreams, yeah?" I sang the last part. Some dickbag sang those words before fuckin' everything up back during the Consumer Rebellion. Got a ton of folks canceled, hard.

Trish actually cracked on that on and started almost howling. "Vick, that's so old. nobody listens to that slag anymore."

"Old Man Vick." Yumi giggled.

"More than you know." I muttered.

As we opened the Door, we stacked up. Me first, then Yumi, Z0R4, KL1CK, Trish and last Harvey.

We descended down a couple of flights of stairs, and we were in the Underworks.

I was expecting dark and gloomy, a secret land of hidden corners and shadowy paths.

Nope bright as fucking day. Clean, bright color-coded pipes following the walls and ceiling.

Every 100 yards or so we'd come across an intersection, these would have a small collection of rooms built off of them.

There were other rooms between the intersections, but they required high levels of clearance as those were where all the magic happens, food was made, or power generated or waste processed, or the production of the things needed for those machines or operations.

No the rooms at the intersections were Server rooms, Tool Storage and Break Rooms for any maintenance crews down here, Drone storage and recharging stations for the drones that keep it clean and kill pests. The break rooms tend to have beds and a decent store of supplies of dehydrated foodstuffs. While we weren't supposed to use these supplies, no one would get too upset over it. This also meant water was everywhere. A load off my mind.

These rooms were the most important because this was where Yumi could gather logs, so we could track the target. The sensor suite down here record everything. Not thatI had known that before coming down here.

Also some of the intersections had stairs down or up, rarely both at once.

While we stopped at the fourth one of these intersections and Yumi was hunting data, Trish laid it out for me.

Sure there were tons of Underlords, but not so many that they were everywhere. Surges do happen every so often where that become a bigger concern. Yet as long as you stay in the first five levels, you rarely see them. Unless they are scaving. Below that, and yeah, it was going to start being a real problem. Colonies of tens of thousands have been reported.

For some reason even the dreaded Ghouls let the drones keep their areas nice and tidy. They'd eat all the supplies though.

Begs the question why are they so pale? The lights down here were broad spectrum lighting, good for growing plants. Plenty of UV and infrared in it. You can even tan under some of them.

Neither of the ladies had an answer for that. Genetic defect or something weirder?

Yumi got a lead and on we went.

Hours later, we had gone down three levels and still everything looked the same as before. The lack of variance, was starting to get on my nerves. Same part of my mind viewed things like this as a trap. The worst kind of Maze.

We had stopped to eat and rest. When I heard someone coming, with panicked labored breathing.

I let the girls know and we got ready.

We could see him a ways off running as best he could and several pale forms followed, slower taking their time driving their prey to exhaustion.

"Loud, or Soft?" I asked leveling the Kraken on the oncomers.

"I'd say soft, that looks like one of the Junker with the target." Yumi suggested.

"Leave him and maybe one of the Ghouls able to answer questions." Trish gave her opinion.

"Soft it is." I stowed the Kraken in it's resting position and pulled the Axe.

The hall were 20ft x 20ft, plenty of room for a swing but, I choked up on the haft closer to the head. This is a technique for axes and hatchets I read about once, meant for close fighting.

I charged, the victim screamed and dropped to the ground, I hopped over him and started punching at the ghouls with my axe.

The first's head still came off, despite my poor angle. Force solves many problems.

The second and third got new holes in their chests, breathing became a chore for them.

I backhanded the fourth out of the way, while kicking the fifth in the face.

Number six got gutted, sliced across as I spun back around.

Hmm, number four would probably live, and five might but he wouldn't be talking with a tore off jaw. I finished him off and started dragging his buddy back toward the girls.

They had already collected the Junker.