”What happened here?” Renold asked as poked at a mound of wooden snakes. The pile shifted, falling into a disgusting mess of dead serpents.
“Oh, uh- there was a creepy monster down that way.” I pointed down the hall towards the offices. “It's been taken care of.”
Renold chuckled to himself, kicking aside one of the wood snakes as he withdrew a cigarette and lit it up with the lighter built into his hand. “Should’ve guessed. Plant monsters are this place’s bread and butter.”
“Chek… should’ve brought herbicide.” Seriously, I could’ve made everything way easier on myself if I dumped some into the canteen. Not that it would matter much, I think. Doubt simple herbicides would work on magic plants. Probably had some bullshit chemical resistance… still, I should try some out when I get back to the city.
Renold took a long drag of the cigarette. “No kidding. There was a guy who applied for the Crimson Company a while back. He was a very skilled Adept in terms of bio-sculpting and life manipulation. He would shine here.”
”Take it you didn’t hire him then?” I asked as I started leading the way once more under the watchful eyes of turrets. I kept my voice low.
”Nah. Ideological differences. He wanted ‘experimental materials’ from creatures we fought. Such a shame Adepts always end up like that… Too much of a hassle.” Renold shrugged. “Why risk our lives capturing something when we could easily bombard it from afar?”
Torren had seemed like the experimental type in the short time I knew him. Then again, that was just from what I’d seen. It made sense that Adepts were into experimentation though considering they had to make and design their own magic. “What about that fire Adept in the APC?”
”Oh, him? He’s alright. Got a weird obsession with creating flame art though. You should ask to see his collection. Some of his stuff is- well- fire.” Renold took another puff of his cigarette. The stench was starting to get to me as I discreetly put on my mask and tightened my hood.
Before long, we arrived at the door to the Archives. It was a typical setup for such a place. A small entry area with a desk and several terminals set up front with rows and rows of shelves stretching back behind them. It would take forever to search each shelf one by one for what I wanted.
But before all of that, a see-through door blocked our way. “Swipe your badge.”
”Chek.” Renold replied.
We easily got access to the Archives using Renold’s executive manager status. His card was used once again to log onto the terminals. The terminals themselves were a bit annoying since a rat had chewed through the wires, though I solved that issue by rigging my gauntlet into it.
From there, it was as easy as bypassing the restrictions with Renold’s authority and hunting down the location of the blueprint. I wrote down its location as I read it aloud. “Row 19, fifth shelf back. Marked M-20 to N-3.”
I handed over the piece of paper to Renold. He took it, nodding to me. “I got it.”
While he fetched the blueprint, I looked through the Archives for anything else of note. I noticed quite a few important files were locked in the Back Archives somewhere. Maybe they had another room?
I glanced around, leaving the terminal behind to get a better look at the place. On the back wall, a hallway stretched backward. A thick security door blocked it. Sensors, thermals, and sentry turrets covered the approaching hallway. Four bots, these ones different from the attendant types I’d seen so far, flanked the door with charging ports close at hand.
They were armed and dangerous, looking far closer to old military robots than anything. Getting past them in a fight would be difficult. Just from here, I could see rocket pods and heavy guns. Whatever was back there, Acumen Industrial was more than willing to shred the entire Archive room just to keep it safe… made me want to break into it even more.
Like I’m always saying, the best security is no one knowing it's there. With a strong and overwhelming security system like what they had set up back there, it made those capable of breaking in all the more curious. Getting past that lot would be easy outside of a frontal attack. Especially considering Renold’s executive manager status.
But there was time for that later. For now? Getting the rest of the Crimson Company in here. Renold returned with several tubes in his arms. The HMG was strung over his back as if the guy wasn’t worried about his safety in the slightest.
Then again, he probably wasn’t. The security systems would probably shred anyone or anything approaching him considering his status as the sole executive manager of the Laurus Theatre. Renold was probably the safest person in the building.
He pulled a large blueprint out of one of the tubes, unrolling it across the desk. Finally, after all this time, I got my hands on the technical blueprints. I scanned the thing, instantly memorizing it with Eidetic Schematic. I took a while though, intentionally making the process seem drawn out and more normal.
Renold pulled out more and more blueprints of the building, giving me a broader scope of the entire technical side of the Laurus Theatre. I had everything I needed just right here to entirely shut down the lockdown, one way or another.
I glanced over the blueprints, looking for the command room. I found it near the roof. It sat up above the entire theatre, having a bird's eye view over everything. Interestingly, the turrets all seemed to be hardwired up to massive terminal banks inside the command room. They didn’t run independently like modern turrets.
I tracked through the technical side of the schematics, taking note of any other oddities or differences between past and modern stuff. I was having a bit of a hard time though. Something about the schematics just felt wrong. They didn’t match up with one another.
It took nearly ten minutes before I realized what the issue was. The building had way higher power draw on the city’s grid than it should’ve. It was a big building, but the kind of power the different blueprints indicated was double what it should need.
I followed the infrastructure of the facility, noticing signs of a subterranean complex underneath the Laurus Theatre. They were common enough I was becoming quite skilled at spotting them. The entrance was… well, it could be anywhere. My first suspicion was the Back Archives thanks to how heavy the security there was, but they may just have important documents back there.
“So? Found what we’re looking for?” Renold asked as he started to put away the blueprints.
“Chek. We need to go up.” I checked the sensors for my Blinder. It was approaching that time again. “I need to find a safe spot to hide for about an hour.”
”Uh- I saw a bathroom back in the cubicle farm. Should be safe enough.” Renold offered.
I nodded. “Bring the blueprints with you. I’ll look over them there.”
Renold packed everything up as I left him behind. When I got back to Aythryn City, I needed to modify my Blinder and incorporate some kind of cooling into it.
Our ascension through the theatre was a long and drawn-out process, stretching over several hours. I disabled every single charging port marked on the blueprints, completely knocking out the bots. They wouldn’t be an issue after a couple of days.
As for getting rid of the rest of the security? I was hopeful. Even if I couldn’t disable it through the system’s software, I could always ruin the hard link for the turrets. We’d still have to deal with some of the lockdown protocols that way, but most of the danger would be gone.
We passed by many grand booths and patrolling bots, ignoring almost everything. There’d be time to loot later. And besides, I was better off waiting for the Crimson Company to do all the heavy lifting with the loot. I’d get a portion of the total value anyway. Not that I was all that sure what would be worth looting in this place.
And then we were there, at the top of one last staircase. A metal door blocked the way in, with several skeletons pressed up against it as if they desperately wanted to get in. Quite a few badges were mixed in with the rotting clothes and bare bones. Probably higher-ups locked out when everything went to shit.
We waded through the bones, my approach entirely silent while Renold just casually stomped through the place, shattering dry bones underfoot.
In small cubbies on either side of the door, two of the heavily armed combat bots stood at the ready. They lacked the rocket pods the ones guarding the Back Archives had. They lowered their weapons upon seeing Renold. “Welcome… executive manager.”
”Can you open the door?” Renold asked as he looked at the two combat bots.
”Negative. This unit's... permissions are not… high enough. Please present… ID badge.” The bot motioned towards a scanner on the side of the door.
Renold approached, careful not to take the badge off as he scanned the thing. The doors slid open, revealing yet another scene of slaughter. Two more combat droids stood at attention inside the command room, overlooking a mound of bones trying to escape through the metal door.
I slunk up behind Renold and whispered in his ear. “Try to get rid of the combat bots.”
”Hey, you two, go secure the perimeter. Don’t disturb me while I review the lockdown.” Renold ordered, putting on a voice similar to Hampton’s.
The bots froze as they processed his commands. “Error. Patrol area is… limited.”
“Expand it then. What if the two outside aren’t enough to stop an attacker? This place will be safer with all four of you out there.” Renold tried to apply to their logical side of the protocols.
”Affirmative… call if any… issues arise.” The two bots marched out of the command room. Renold quickly shut the doors on them.
While all that was going on, I made my move for the turrets and cameras in the area. I covered them up with tape and a deck of cards, blocking any and all sensors. Once I was sure everything was disabled, I flicked off my Blinder for a moment.
Nothing happened. Seeing as I wasn’t immediately shot at, I was probably safe. With all the security taken care of, I immediately approached the terminals and got to work.
The terminal booted right up, though I needed Renold’s ID one more time for its permissions. I easily got access to the mainframe, looking through the programs and protocols. I took my time looking through everything all the commands I had access to with my current level of permissions.
Unfortunately, shutting down the lockdown fully wasn’t possible. I need CEO-level permissions to shut down a Zeta Lockdown. Obviously, I didn’t have that. At best, we had executive manager permissions.
Such a lockdown made me start to think though; what were they keeping here that required such high security? The potential underground structure must have something worth all the protections. I mentally noted it as I continued to fiddle through the programs.
Eventually, I found a spot to whitelist people using Renold’s permissions. In theory, I could add everyone in the Crimson Company to the whitelist, turning the security to work for us… but there were so many things that could go wrong with that. It would be much, much safer to just disable it all.
Still, with security working for us, it would seriously reduce the amount of work the Crimson Company would have on perimeter security. It’d let us loot quicker with all hands on deck and get out of the city even faster. Speed was key. Things were going downhill in New Tress City.
This decision… well, it's a good thing I’m not the company captain, isn’t it? I can shove the decision onto him. Either way, I’d be mostly safe as long as I paid attention. “Hey, Renold, can you get Captain Roger on the line? It's very important.”