Unlike before, we don't know how many thugs there were in this place so we'll have to be careful while we're advancing.

They might even be alerted to our presence by now and laid traps for us.

There was just a single corridor leading away from here so we proceeded through it in the same formation as before.

To make sure that the bastard who tried to trick us wouldn't try anything, we tied him up before leaving him to bleed out in a corner, all of us ignoring his cries of despair.

The corridor was also dimly lit with it being illuminated by barely functioning and flickering overhead lamps at regular intervals.

Another metal door was at the end of the corridor, similar in design to the first one that we used to come through.

As we approached the door, something moved out of the shadows and lunged towards Amber.

I wanted to raise my gun to shoot at the thug who had been using the darkness to hide himself but Amber beat me to it.

She leaned slightly back to avoid the guy's hand and swung her left hand under her chest to point her gun at the thug's abdomen, firing two shots at point blank range.

There was a gasp from the thug before Amber kicked him away to create some distance and shot him again, this time aiming for the head.

She then continued forward, stepping over the corpse like nothing happened.

Lea and I followed after her until we reached the door, covering for her as she opened it.

We held our breath as the door swung towards us, revealing a sort of manufacturing room inside where various machines lined either side of the walls, all of them currently online and producing something along an assembly line.

What was curious about it was there was no one here.

Amber approached one of the machines and whistled, "Oh, I see now. These guys are actually making fake White Powder here."

I looked over her shoulder and sure enough, some weird packages were being fed into the machines and at the very end of the conveyor belt, some white substance was being pushed out and dumped into a large container.

I turned to Amber, "Fake white powder?"

She nodded, "See those packages? They're processed synthfood. They're just crushing them and adding some colour to make it look like White Powder when it's really not. They're probably using this to scam people looking for the real thing."

Right… So these guys aren't only kidnapping people for their illegal slavery trade, they're also selling fake drugs… Man, these guys really are a bunch of losers aren't they?

Oh shit… Don't tell me those boxes outside were the fake stuff?! I was even so excited for it when I saw so many bags of it! God damnit…

I dipped my finger in one of the white substances but Amber grabbed my hand before I could bring it up to taste it.

"I… Really do not recommend doing that. It's crap. Like really crap… If you were already throwing up from eating that synthramen back then, I think you'll pass out from tasting this."

That bad huh…

I shook off the substance and wiped my finger on the conveyor belt before nodding at Amber, indicating we should continue.

We went past the machines, still on the lookout for any other thugs but this place seemed to be completely deserted.

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Moving to the next room however, we found ourselves in what looked like a recreational room of sorts with what I assume to be a pool table in the centre and a rather beaten down bar at the other side.

The place was rather smashed up so I assume this place used to be a proper bar but was abandoned before these guys took over it.

And in this room were three people, two of them currently playing a game at the pool table and another sprawled over the bar counter, asleep.

They didn't see us yet so we hid behind the bar counter while the two guys were talking.

"Hey, have you seen the new girls yet?"

"The ones that were brought in yesterday? Not yet, why?"

"I heard we're actually going to use the real stuff on them this time."

"Wait, really? How did we get our hands on that?"

"Seems like someone brought in a whole fuckton of it and they're selling it around the station. We got some from that old man from the General Store. So if we're lucky, we might get one of the girls hooked on it and make them believe they're actually happy being our bitch."

"Shiiiit, yeah you told me about that. You think the boss would leave a few of them for us?"

"Probably just one or two I would say. Maybe just a shared bitch. Won't hear me complaining about that though."

"Nice. At least it's better than threatening them with the fake one and forcing them to sign the slavery contract. We can just get them to sign it willingly with this. Maybe even while they're sucking us off at the same time, hahaha!"

"Oh yeah, we also sent some guys after that old man that's selling the White Powder too."

"Wait… Really? Why?"

"Hahaha! We paid them to find out where he was getting the White Powder. If we can find out where he's getting them from, we won't need to buy them from him anymore."

Damn, so these guys bought from him before selling him out huh?

Amber was about to stand up and shoot at them when I held her back, "We should find out where they are keeping the girls."

She raised an eyebrow at me, "You're going to rescue them?"

"I mean… Might as well, right?"

Lea nodded, "These girls deserve a better fate than being slaves."

"Says the slave girl herself," Amber pointed out before nodding at me. "Alright. But just so you know, if they try to reach for anything, I'm shooting them."

I nodded before walking into the room with my gun pointed at the first guy, Amber and Lea following in after me with their own weapons raised.

"Ah shit! Who the--"

"Don't move or I'm going to blow your brains out!" I threatened.

The two men immediately froze and raised their hands in the air.

"Where are you keeping the girls?" I asked.

"Ah fuck… Fucking Mercs…" The guy on the left spat.

I pointed my gun at him, "Talk. Now."

"At the back… Go down another floor… There's a large room at the end."

"And where are the drugs?" Amber asked.

"God damn it… Storeroom over there beside the bar."

I nodded at him, "Thanks, now fuck off."

Honestly, I had no intention of sparing them. I only wanted them to let down their guards and make them think we were before shooting them but when they lowered their hands, both of them immediately reached behind their waist so I pulled the trigger first.

The one I had been pointing at had his face blasted while the second guy got shot in the head by Amber as well, both men dropping to the ground simultaneously.

A low whine came from behind me just as the thug that was sleeping on the counter woke up, only for Lea's sniper round to pierce through the side of his head.

I went towards the guy I shot and nudged him over to see that he was indeed reaching for a gun that he had at his back.

"What are the odds he told us the truth?" I asked.

"I wouldn't bet on it, but we at least have a place to check?" Amber shrugged.

We first went to the room that they had told us was the storeroom located beside the bar, the door this time being an automatic sliding one instead of the manual one.

When it opened, I immediately noticed a sentry gun hanging above on the ceiling that swivelled around to point at us the moment we had line of sight to it.

I pulled Amber back around the corner just as several bullets flew past us, piercing through the space that Amber had been just a moment ago.

Amber chuckled as she pulled herself out of my embrace, "Well, that was definitely worth it. At least they weren't lying about it being a storeroom, they just neglected to mention that it had a stupid sentry turret inside it as well."

I loaded an armour piercing slug round into my shotgun, "Yeah… Let me take care of it."

I peeked out from the cover and the sentry immediately shifted towards me in preparation to fire.

Unfortunately for it, I was just a second faster and I fired my gun, piercing through the entire machine with just a single round which caused it to short circuit before the sentry shut itself down.

With the turret dealt with, we peeked inside the storeroom and found that there were shelves inside that were filled with boxes.

Opening one of them revealed them to be synthfood packages, similar to the ones we saw being fed into the machines outside.

I was about to think that the bastard lied to us completely when Lea opened up another box to reveal several packages of White Powder in it.

Nice. We're not going back empty handed at least.

And these were the real deal so even though there's only a few packets of them, it's still worth some money at least.

Now I guess we should go rescue the girls downstairs…