"Who is this guy?" Amber asked as we made our way to the lower floors of the station.

"Apparently someone who can help upgrade my Co-- My personal terminal into a Decoder or at least help us decode the data chips we received from Saulo."

"Ehhh… Mara knows this guy?"

I nodded, "I believe so. She did say he owes her a favour which was why we only needed a million Credits for this."

"My apologies, Captain. But who is Mara?" Lea asked from behind.

Oh yeah, they haven't met, have they?

Amber spoke up before I could, "Just some annoying bitch, don't worry about it."

Lea gave me a questioning look and I chuckled before explaining, "She's a Gene splicer and an information broker. She's been helping us with a lot of information recently."

"An information broker? Aren't those the unsavoury types, Captain? They would even rip you off for asking the most common of information if they knew you needed it desperately."

Err… Seeing that Mara admitted she would sell the information about our client to the gang that was hunting him for five times the amount she would normally sell at, I guess there was some truth to that.

But then again, I dare say that most businesses would also work the same way if they could get away with it.

"We… Have an agreement, you could say," I explained, only for Amber to let out a bark of laughter.

"Ahahaha! What she means is that she has Mara curled around her little finger because she is addicted to her cooking and is too afraid to lose the special privilege of being one of the few to be able to taste it."

Come on now, she's just being nice…

Unexpectedly, Lea nodded her head like Amber had just shared something profound, "I see, that explains it."

Explain what? That's not it at all!

Oh whatever.

I checked my Codex to make sure we were on the right track before continuing to lead the way, which was making me question why he even set up his shop down here.

In order to even get here, we had to take the lift down to the entertainment district, head behind a specific bar to use a maintenance hatch to descend down a ladder into a set of maintenance tunnels, then go through an abandoned storeroom to reach a set of stairs which went down at least ten floors before we finally got to where we currently are.

And according to the map, we have another corridor to walk through, then another flight of stairs before reaching some kind of server room before we would get to a hidden door that led to the place the guy was hiding in.

Who would even come all the way down to find this guy anyway?

Actually… Does anyone else even know that this guy is down here? Because moving through these tunnels, it doesn't feel like anyone has been through here in ages.

Like shiiiit… That bottle looks like it has some kind of mould colony growing on it and the colony even looks like it has another colony on it…

I tried not to think about it and just kept pressing forward through the corridor.

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At least Amber and Lea weren't commenting about it aside from the earlier instance and that's only after we've already gone so deep in and my only explanation was that we were going to find someone Mara introduced.

I wasn't sure if I should feel happy that they trust me so much that they did not even question me when I gave so little information about it before leading them here.

Also… Did I mention that there were no lights down here? We had to use the flashlight from our personal terminals to light the way which kind of made this entire trip rather creepy.

It almost felt like something was going to jump out at us from the shadows at any moment and I kept looking back to make sure Lea didn't get snatched up by some monster sneaking behind us.

Hey, you never know, ok? And it doesn't hurt to be a little bit more careful.

After walking for another half an hour, we finally reached the door that would lead us to the server room.

Now we were presented with the problem of the door staying closed and not opening for us.

"Seems like the door's out of power," Amber commented after tapping the console beside said door.

That means it's not a matter of the door being locked which I might be able to hack open if it was the case.

Lea looked around the corridor we were standing in, "Perhaps there's an independent generator powering it that we can start up to open it?"

I also joined her in looking around to see if there were cables or wires that we could follow, "Umm… Where would we even start to find this generator though?"

Amber scoffed, "Pfft, there's no need for that. I'll just pry it open. Watch~"

She went up to the door and forced her fingers through the gap between the two halves of the sliding door, forcing it open to accommodate her fingers which she then used to pull open.

The door made a rather loud grinding noise when she did so and I felt my hair stand on end upon hearing it.

She then released the door and I thought it might slam shut but it surprisingly did not.

"Tadah~" She cheered, gesturing towards the now open door.

I narrowed my eyes at the door, "Was it that easy to open such doors."

Amber waved her hand at me, "Pfft~ Of course! It's not like this is some heavy duty, high security armoured door or whatever!"

Right… Perhaps I should try it next time instead of wasting time hacking the door.

Actually… I think hacking it would still be faster so nevermind.

The three of us stepped inside the room and I was expecting this server room to be completely dark too.

Surprisingly though, I could see lights flashing in the server farm which indicated that they were actually online, meaning there was actually power running through this place but the door was cut off from it for some reason.

Maybe the servers themselves were being powered by another energy source?

Also… Who do these servers belong to?

"Oh, these must be the servers for the station's administration. I'm more surprised that it's still running," Amber answered my unasked question cheerily.

"The station's administration?" I asked.

She shrugged, "Yeah, seen these on other stations before. Records the ships entering and leaving the station, the resources and stockpiles, people coming and going out, things like that."

Lea turned to her, "And how did you know this?"

"Cause I took a job to steal the data of one before, duh."

"Why would anyone do that?"

"I dunno. Probably some guy who doesn't want his name to be recorded in the system or maybe they're looking for someone in particular within the station. I wasn't paid to find out why and I didn't care either."

So there's jobs like that too huh…

And now I'm seriously wondering why this guy would set up shop here?

According to Mara's directions, the hidden door should be over--

Clang!

I immediately pulled out my shotgun strapped on my back while Amber pulled out her pistols and Lea pulled out her rifle.

The three of us then pointed our weapons at the place the sound came from almost at the same time.

Illuminated by the light from our personal terminals was what looked like some kind of screwdriver rolling across the ground.

I scanned the area around it but found nothing else that stood out aside from that single screwdriver.

I turned to look at Amber and she nodded back at me.

She started advancing towards the screwdriver while I followed behind her and had Lea cover my back, wary of any other movements in the shadows.

When we reached the screwdriver, Amber checked around the corners to make sure the coast was clear before she bent down to pick up the object.

"Hmm… I have no idea what this is," She admitted before handing it over to me.

I took it and gave it a look over.

It certainly looks like a screwdriver but something tells me it wasn't because while it had the end that looked like a philips head, it was lacking the grooves of one and there seemed to be a wire sticking out at the very tip.

Just as I was about to announce that I also had no idea what it was, something moved in the corner of my eye and I immediately dropped the thing in my hand to pick up my shotgun again.

The 'thing' turned out to be a dark figure who darted in between the server farms and disappeared into the darkness, leaving no other trace behind.

Looks like we're not alone in here.