* * *

Lance descended a flight of stairs from the rafters, and upon reaching the first floor down, found himself in a long hallway. Doors flanked on either side going all the way down, with ceiling lights illuminating the whole way.

This isn’t it…

He quickly made his way past the doors, careful not to make too much sound. It seemed like every Gremlin in the facility should have been working right now, but he didn’t want to take any chances. He eyed each room as he passed them, haunted by his imagining a Gremlin opening a door and finding him.

I’m definitely in the wrong area. Crap, crap, crap!

He reached the end of the hall. To his right, another staircase leading down again. To the left, an unlabeled door.

It wouldn’t make sense for it to be here. This looks to be the Gremlin’s sleeping quarters, there’s no way the terminal would be here.

He inched his way to the door.

But I’ll never know if I don’t at least check…

He slowly reached out, barely gripping the door knob. He checked over his shoulder, but the only thing he could see was the empty stairwell. The only sound was that of the Gremlins working on the weapon. And his heavy breathing.

He turned back around and twisted the doorknob, pulling it open with just enough strength to inch the door open. He peered inside.

The light from the hallway pierced the darkness, and he found…

Brooms, buckets, and several foul smelling bags.

“Janitor’s closet. Damnit!”

He almost slammed the door shut in anger, only just stopping himself from making too much noise. He made sure the door was shut before turning around and heading back to the stairs.

This place is basically a maze without–

He stopped as he began climbing down the staircase. A placard was posted on the wall, displaying the letter G and the numbers one through four, as well as their designated room functions next to each..

G: Holding and Storage.

One: Main Construction Zone.

Two: Archives.

Three: Recreation.

Four: Living Quarters.

Perfect. 

Lance began his descent once more, with more purpose and determination than before.

* * *

A couple minutes later, more footsteps could be heard on the top floor.

Zimthose walked through the hallway, ignoring the doors on either side of him. He’d decided to follow Lance, but was lagging behind just a bit. He decided to substitute absolute silence for a bit more speed, trying to catch up to the Technician Knight.

If he were being honest, he wasn’t sure of himself. In the middle of a massive Gremlin operation by themself, any Spiral Knight would find themself high strung and tense, their adrenaline pumping, nerves shot as they did their best to not wind up in need of a Spark of Life. Sneaking through such an area only exacerbated Zimthose’s symptoms.

Alas, he was not honest.

“I’m telling ya Bigsby, he’s got way better luck than I do. It’s best if we follow him. I’m sure I can swipe the data we need before he finds it.”

He felt the lack of a response, but said nothing else. He reached the end of the hall, finding himself in the same spot Lance had been in just a few minutes prior. Without hesitating, he walked to the left, opened the door, and entered.

“Oh.”

It took him a moment to realize it was a janitor’s closet. It was small, cluttered, and reeked of garbage.

“Jeez, they live like this?” he muttered, waving a hand in front of his face in a vain attempt to disperse the stench. He looked around and noticed a belt hanging on a hook. It had with it a radio and key ring. “Score.”

He wrapped the belt around his waist, the wrench and cog shaped buckle dangling loosely. It was designed to fit around the larger waisted Gremlins, not a slim Spiral Knight. Zimthose pulled it off and wrapped it across his torso, crossing from his left shoulder to the right of his waist.

“That’ll have to do. Now, where’d that nerd go?”

Bigsby chirped and tried jumping out of Zimthose’s pocket. The Striker caught the dust bunny, placing him on his right shoulder.

“I get you’re excited, but gotta keep quiet. Quiet, okay? Can’t go getting caught now. We’re only just getting started!”

He made his way to the staircase.

“Can’t believe how clueless Lance is. He really thought he’d get one up on me? He missed the keys he’s gonna need to get around, the idiot!”

With that, Zimthose continued down the staircase, the walls a blur as he rushed on.

* * *

“No issues so far. That’s a good sign, I guess.”

Balldrick and I hadn’t moved much since we lost sight of Lance or Zimthose. We kept our radio chatter silent, lest a Gremlin manage to hear our voices on the other side. There was no telling what the inside of the facility was like, so the two infiltrators could have been mere feet away from any guards at any point in time, for all we knew.

“Unless they were both caught immediately and the Gremlins had no need to raise the alarm.” Balldrick was leaning against a tree, relatively relaxed given the circumstances. “Or maybe it’s a silent alarm and we’ll have Gremlins surrounding us in just a minute.”

“Ha, ha. Funny,” I said.

“Was worth a shot,” he replied, standing up straight and stretching.

“I hope your actual shots find their mark better than your jokes do.”

“Oh, you can count on that.” 

“Yeah? Been practicing?”

“Every evening.”

“Not in the Guild Hall’s training room, though?”

“Nope. No competition to be had."

“Ouch!” But he ignored me.

“Some gunslingers get together around dusk, east of the garrison. We use either Stun Blasters, Zappers, or rubber bullets. Sometimes it's a free for all, other times a team duel.”

“Oh? That sounds like good training. Could be pretty fun too, from the sounds of it.” It sounded not unlike the sword training Zimthose and I practiced weekly at the Advanced Training Hall with groups of other knights.  

“It might be, if you don’t mind the challenges.”

“Like what?”

“Hmm…” he thought for a second, making sure to keep an eye on our surroundings. “Well, last week was one-armed combat. Dominant hand tied behind our back, we had to aim, shoot, and reload with one hand.”

“Seriously?”

“Yep. Next week, some of the more hardcore gunslingers want to combine that with my favorite challenge: wearing an eyepatch.”

“This isn’t you just trying to get me to pass on joining you, is it?”

Balldrick chuckled, but didn’t reply. 

“...Whatever it takes to survive down here, right?”

“...Yeah. Whatever it takes.”

Silence.

The fake moon was slowly making its way up. The white-blue glow felt brighter than on the surface; there was no atmosphere to obstruct it, and it was always a full moon since the light it produced was its own.

“We should check in soon, just to be safe,” I said.

“Give them another fifteen or so, at least.”

“Hmm… yeah, alright. And you sure you’re good with my plan, should things go south?”

Balldrick nodded.

“Alright. Then we wait, just a bit longer.”

Silence, again.

“Hey, I’ve got an idea for another challenge you guys could try.”

* * *

“Note to self, gaseous bombs may be mostly silent themselves, but their effects are not.”

Lance kept up a fast but quiet pace as he made his way down the stairs to the second floor, taking each step just as soon as his toes touched the last. His biggest concern being in enemy territory was alerting anyone to his presence, so he was conscious of every step he took making too much noise.

Upon reaching the third floor, he had pried open the door to immediately discover two Gremlins in the Recreational room, which to him looked like nothing more than a large walk-in closet with worn out chairs and a makeshift square table that had cards and crowns on it. Both Gremlins had been so invested in their game and arguing over the amount of crowns on the table, neither noticed Lance’s new toy roll under them until it had burst, spewing gases from the three pores in its base and filling the whole room with a blue-green smog. The Gremlins were slow to react, first reaching to hoard their crowns before slumping over in a crash a few moments later.

Lance smiled as he viewed his handiwork; he had only used the original version of this bomb a couple of times, including once on an already sleeping Zimthose just to see if any amount of noise could wake a target up. It couldn’t, but physically rousing someone seemed to wear off the effects, so he left them where they lay. As long as nobody else went on break soon, he figured he should have at least half an hour before the Gremlins woke up on their own. He’d closed the door and kept walking.

Maybe I should have looked for a lift…

Finally, he made it to the second floor of the facility. The Archives.

The door from the stairwell led to a small anteroom, with double doors leading to another room with a large light source from the other side. He tiptoed in, and found one of the two doors to be propped open. He pushed it open just enough to see in, but couldn’t find any sign of Gremlins present. All he could see was a massive terminal station, consisting of a large desk with multiple monitors stacked on top of each other connected to a wide array of keys. Behind the monitor, a glass window peered over the construction area below. 

This is it! 

He slowly let the door shut behind him and made his way to the terminal. He brought out a flash drive and spent only a moment locating where to plug it in. His fingers flew over the rather large keys of the terminal with practiced ease; his time spent using Gremlin and Stranger styled consoles back in Haven had paid off. 

I’m not a Tech Knight for nothing!

The clacking of the keys echoed softly in the room as windows popped open and closed on the monitor as the Technician knight began searching for anything related to Project R. Flashes of sparks and the hammering from outside and below caught his attention momentarily. He wondered if Zimthose might not have been correct, that it would have been better to outright destroy the weapon here and now instead of just stealing the data. Certainly, it’d be more dangerous for them, but would it not prove more beneficial for Haven in the long run? 

No, this process made more sense. If they destroyed their work now, the Gremlins would have less to make up for than if Wolver Squad waited to destroy the project when it was further along and closer to completion. Besides, if they could decipher the data, they’d be able to figure out how best to hurt Project R, and maybe prevent the Gremlins from trying something again in the near future–

“Lance, Zimthose, come in. What’s your status? Found the data yet?”

“Jeez!”

Lance jumped at the sound of the radio blaring in his ears without warning. He fumbled for the comlink under his hood, holding the button to respond.

“I’m in the archives and searching for anything related to Project R now. How’s it looking out there, Blast?”

“It’s quiet so far. Starting to fall asleep almost, so if you guys could hurry up, Balldrick and I would appreciate it.”

“Uhuh, sure. I’ll get riiight on that. Would you like us to get caught in the process while we’re at–”

As the words were exiting his mouth, he heard the distinct sound of metal sliding through flesh. Immediately, chills shook his core; he looked down and began feeling all over, checking his body. Nothing.

“Kaugh…”

He twirled around and found a Gremlin with a black and purple blade sticking out of its chest, its claws reaching towards him. It coughed, the sword retracting through its collapsing torso. Zimthose stood there, shaking his head.

“Sloppy.”

“...Sorry.”

“What was that? You cut off at the end there, Lance.”

“Nothing. We’ll be as fast as we can, and let you know if anything changes.”

“Copy that. Take care.”

Zimthose swung his blade to the side before gracefully returning it to its sheath. The body of the Gremlin lay between them, already turning an ashen gray. 

“You didn’t think to lock the door behind you?” he asked.

“It’d seem ultra suspicious if I did! They’d know someone was in here that shouldn’t be!”

“Yeah, well, he found you either way. So you’re welcome.”

“I get it, I get it. Thanks.”

Zimthose grunted as he stepped over the body, arriving at the console.

“This is it, yeah? What happened to it being heavily guarded? I was expecting a fight.”

“I said a fight, and that definitely wasn’t one," he said, nudging the body with his foot. "So, what’s taking you so long?”

“I literally got here, like, two minutes ago! Do you have any idea how hard it is to sort through this much data? It’s like finding a needle in a haystack!”

“Hmm,” Zimthose mused to himself, clearly not paying attention. He looked at the keyboard, resting a hand on the hilt of his blade.

“Absolutely not!” Lance hissed.

“Uh, I didn’t say anything yet?”
“Your eyes speak volumes. You can’t destroy this yet, we’ll lose our chance at getting what we came for!”

“Then deal with it already! You’re the tech knight!”

“I. Am. Trying!” Lance shoved Zimthose out of the way, and got back to frantically typing. Zimthose tried following along, but the popups were too fast for him to keep up.

“Dang, you’re fast. How do you know you’re not overlooking it?”

“I’ve done this kind of stuff hundreds of times in simulators back in Haven. Gremlin, Stranger, and especially Isoran technology. I can navigate the data structures pretty well, if I do say so myself.”

“Then… why is it taking so–”

“There are several hundred gigs of data stored on the hardware itself, not to mention the dozen terabytes of data on their encrypted cloud network! It’ll take some time, so why don’t you be helpful and watch the door so nobody else sneaks up on us like before?”

Zimthose grumbled, but did as he was asked.