"Did you see that?" I asked.

"See some idiot running in the dark and almost tripping over himself? Of course."

"I saw that too, Captain. He knocked himself against one of the server farms on the way too."

What the heck, how did the both of you see that? All I saw was some figure running off!

Whatever.

"Do you think that's our guy?" I asked.

Amber shrugged, "I wouldn't be surprised if he was. Who else would be living down here in a place like this?"

Err… I mean… It could just be a squatter or the figure might have also been a Merc hired to do something to the server farms…

But what do I know?

I pocketed the screwdriver thingy thinking that it should belong to our quarry before returning to following Mara's directions.

Her map led me to the corner of the server room where there were rather distinct scratch marks on the ground.

Clearly there was something heavy that was being dragged along the ground here repeatedly.

Though it might look obvious to us here, if we didn't know where to look, we might have completely missed this in the darkness of the room.

I placed my hand on the wall where the scratch marks ended, trying to push on the wall to see if that opened it.

Unfortunately, the wall didn't budge so either there was another way to open this door or it could only be opened outwards, the latter being impossible for us since there was no handle or anything visible that we could tug on.

I turned to the other two, "Alright… It's clearly a door but how do we open it?"

Amber shrugged, "Could you hack it or something?"

Oh right, let me try that.

I pulled up my Codex and tried to scan for anything that it could connect to and found there was indeed a door control that I could connect to.

Unfortunately, it only allowed a physical connection which meant that I had to plug my Codex into through a wire but I don't see a port that I could actually stick my Codex into.

"Look for a plug or some kind of socket around here," I told them.

Lea and Amber nodded and started looking around the walls for a socket of some kind.

Meanwhile, I tried to discern where the part of the wall ended and where the door started by matching the groves that had been carved into the ground.

It seems like the doorway was at least wide enough to fit two people walking side by side, which made me wonder why he needed such a big door for a secret entrance.

"Captain?"

I turned towards Lea who was pointing towards a specific spot on the wall.

I went towards her and found the port that she was pointing at, which seemed to have been covered by a sheet of black tape before Lea had peeled it off.

Nice catch, Lea.

I pulled out the connecting wire and plugged my Codex into the wall, tapping on the screen to start the hacking sequence.

The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

It did not even take me a minute before I had finished hacking it, prompting the door to let out a metallic clack sound before it started to swing outwards to reveal a crack.

Well that was easy.

I unplugged my Codex from the wall and the three of us went back towards the hidden door and I stuck my fingers in the crack to pull the door open.

It was surprisingly lighter than I thought it was, meaning the groves on the ground were made by something else that the guy was moving past the door and not by the door itself.

We peered inside and saw that the corridor led to a turn that had light shining around it.

We weren't sure whether this guy had any traps set for us so we kept our weapons close as we crept towards the light with me leading the way.

I pressed myself against the wall as we neared it, making sure I kept to the darkness until I was at the very edge of the corner.

I then got into a crouch and peered around the corner, only to see a man with frizzled hair wearing something similar to a mechanic's coveralls pointing a pistol down at the corridor while using an overturned table as cover.

That was the only thing in the corridor and he was obviously guarding the door behind him.

Thankfully, he did not notice me and I managed to duck back around the corner without raising any alarms.

Scrolling through my Codex, I looked for the message that Mara sent to me to double check the info she gave me.

I cleared my throat before shouting around the corner, "Hey! You're Bimic, right?!"

There was a pause before he shouted back, "Who sent you?!"

"I'm here for business!"

"Bullshit! Who sent you?!"

"Whisper Tale! Said you could help me!"

Whisper Tale was apparently Mara's alias in the underworld so anyone who deals with her as the information broker would know that name.

There was a stretch of silence before a low growl came from around the corner, "Get over here then."

I turned back to give a look at the other two before stepping out into the light slowly, giving Amber the opportunity to pull me back around the corner should I start getting shot at.

Luckily, nothing of that sort happened and the guy was now standing upright with his gun lowered at his side.

He scowled at me, "Alright, what is it that Whisper Tale said that I could do?"

I raised up my arm to show my Codex, "I need a Decoder installed in this. Heard you could do that?"

He narrowed his eyes at my Codex, "What… What is that thing? Bring it here."

I went towards him and I could see Amber edging closer to the wall out of my peripheral vision, ready to leap out and surprise the guy if he proved hostile.

I showed him the Codex on my arm and he held it and twisted it back and forth to try and inspect it.

"This… I've never seen a personal terminal like this before… Where did you even get this?"

"I found it."

Hey, it wasn't exactly a lie. I did find it on my ship.

He frowned at my answer, "You just started using a personal terminal that you don't know? Really?"

"Hey, it worked and it's pretty good, so why not?"

He shrugged before gesturing to follow him, "Alright then. Fuck it. The machine itself is already intriguing to me so I'll at least take a look. Follow me."

I stopped him, "Could my companions come too?"

He raised an eyebrow, "You weren't alone huh? Should have figured… The pretty ones are always the most sly…"

He mumbled the last part but I didn't catch it since I was busy signalling to Amber and Lea to come out of their hiding place.

They stepped out from the corner and joined my side.

The Bimic guy frowned when he saw Amber, "Golden Amber? You hired a Gold ranked Merc just to watch your back?"

Err… That's not… You know what? Yeah sure.

I shrugged, "This isn't exactly the safest station and the thing I'm asking for isn't something that can be done over the counter by a legitimate shop, can it? For all I know, you have several big, burly men with guns hiding in the shadows."

"Hmph. If I had something like that, did you think I would be hiding down here and scurrying around in the shadows? I most definitely would not."

"So why are you down here anyway? I was under the impression that you had a shop of some kind that you loan out your Decoder for others to use."

"Loan?! Why the fuck would I loan out my Decoder? Something that others in this station would literally kill me to get their hands on?!"

I shrugged, "I met someone else who did that so I just assumed."

"Well, that guy is different from me, ok? If the major gangs upstairs knew there's one right underneath their feet, they'll be storming through those tunnels within the hour. I'm trusting you only because you're referred to by Whisper Tale and I owe her several favours. Got it?"

"Is that why you're down here? Why the server room though?"

"Because what I'm doing is related to the servers. That's all you need to know."

"Hmm… Then I suppose you don't need these back?" I asked, pulling out that screwdriver thing I had picked up.

His hand immediately went to his chest pocket and realised it was empty.

He scowled, "Give that back."

"Is the price of this worth you telling me what you're doing here?"

His jaw tightened before relaxing, "Fine… But follow me, it's not exactly safe out here and I'd hate for someone else to find us."

Without waiting for a response, he turned back around and walked towards the door.

Someone else finding us down here? I mean… We're literally in some dark secluded area of the station behind a hidden door so who could even be here?

Welp… I guess at least we found our guy without too much trouble?