Dressed in his dark infiltration suit and surrounded by strangers, Torvald rides in the back of the chopper in silence. Now, he's having his doubts. Should he have listened to Anatoliy and tried to buy out the remaining contract time?

  Almost imperceptibly, the one-eyed blond shakes his head. There's nothing to be done about it now that he's en route.

  It's dark out so there's not much to look at apart from the glare of advertisements. Inside it's just his new team, lit dimly by the aircraft's running lights. Hm. Now that he's thinking of it he takes the precaution of dimming his prosthetic eye.

  Under the pale glow of the running lights he examines the others briefly. There's Feridun, a short skinny man with medium dark skin and short black hair shot through with white streaks; he's their infiltrator. Vesper is cybersecurity, he's pale, heavyset, with brown hair and gray eyes. Ottar, a slim man with pale blond hair and green eyes, is here for ranged combat. Charna, a Slavic woman, is their lockpick; she's muscular and has blue eyes, wearing her curly dark hair in a tail. Finally in charge of procurement is Idris, a man with medium dark skin. He has dark eyes and shoulder-length silver hair, and he's also rather muscular.

  Looking at his new team Torvald can't help but think of his old one. Ever since losing them he's felt adrift. He still has Bog to anchor him, and Etienne. But his old team was so much a part of his life that it feels wrong to set out with a new one.

  He can still feel Anatoliy's blood on his hands.

  But Torvald continues, if for the sake of his partners more than his own sake. Even after so long with them he's not used to having others for whose sake to go on. But he knows they care for him and therefore he intends to endure, at least as long as his work will allow him.

  This new team seems unconsolidated yet, though they're chattering while Torvald remains silent. None of his thoughts show on his face which is very much the way he prefers things among such strangers.

  The mission briefing informed them all that the place the chopper's going to deposit them will be a feint. It'll deliver them near the office buildings of an unrelated company but they'll be going through the data pipes to get through the building they're breaking into.

  The data pipes are a series of huge cables buried in pipes underneath Novalectrum, carrying information and electricity to and from the city. It's not the most pleasant of entryways, given the risk of electric shock or an accidental data overload to their implants, but if they're careful it'll do. He intends to be careful.

  Hell of a thing to be as tall as he is and trying to do this though.

  One of his new team, Feridun, is pretty heavily implanted, able to have even more extensive readouts from his prosthetic eyes than Torvald can get from his own. This person is clearly their new breaking-and-entering expert; he pops the complicated lock on the maintenance entry to the data tunnels with barely any effort. One by one the five of them drop into the unlit tunnels, with Torvald scooting past them to take point.

  His artificially-enhanced hearing catches the minute crackles from the data lines themselves, the soft drips of encroaching moisture further ahead, the footsteps and the breaths of his new team. What he doesn't hear, however, is the sound of any enemy. Looks like they're either lucky or they've timed their incursion fairly well. Torvald's not fussed either way, even though he's aching for a good fight as always.

  It'll be the death of him someday.

  The blond fighter gets his mind back on the here and now, leading the rest of the team further down the cramped dark tunnels. Pretty soon they get to another hatch, one set into the top of the tunnel. This is the exit that Feridun says is they're looking for and everyone parts to let the man up front. He reads the electronic lock on the hatch and makes short work of it.

  Torvald's up again.

  Despite being less sophisticated than Feridun's implants, his prosthetic eye is packed with all kinds of instruments; he can sense heat, electromagnetic fields, wavelengths of light outside the visible spectrum. Any number of things, as he needs them. He uses the ability to sense heat now, even though the hatch is likely to block most infrared.

  Torvald raises the hatch minutely, looking this way and that rather cautiously until he's sure the room above is empty then hauling himself into a dark room - a server room, from the sheer heat of the place. He slinks to the door along with Feridun and Vesper. A thin square of light in the visible spectrum streams through the hlass in the door; clearly this isn't a place of much consequence. Vesper would know if it was important, and would've told the rest of them by now. Or at least that's his damn job.

  Vesper does actually check, much to Torvald's relief.

  That done, Feridun and Vesper open the server room door in concert. Silently the small group slips down the dimly lit hall and to the elevator. There have to be night guards - at least bots - which is why they're all still being as cautious as possible. They're not supposed to be here and they're especially not supposed to get caught doing what they're doing even though every company knows that every other company's doing it.

  All part of corporate espionage.

  The newly minted team loads into a hacked elevator and heads up to the thirty-fifth floor. This is where the plans they're after are supposedly located.

  Torvald's...a bit unnerved. It's not only because the last mission he went on ended so badly. But something seems off somehow. 'Too quiet,' he mutters to the rest of the team just as the elevator doors open.

  Onto a team of guards and drones.

  Torvald reacts the quickest, whipping out his hardlight sword and flicking on his shield in nearly the same motion.

  Vesper types frantically at his wrist computer while the other three at his back fire up at the drones. The one-eyed blond barrels into the wall of human guards, rage bleeding the whole world red.

  "It was a trap!" Vesper shouts over the fray. Torvald only barely takes note of it, sword flashing here and there - claiming the lives of one guard after another.

  Bolts scatter against his personal shield as he moves - he doesn't quite ignore them but for now they're simple annoyances, and will be until his shield runs out of power.

  In the end they're outnumbered.

  Vesper, rapidly typing on his wrist computer, actually comes through; he finds them a nearby door to escape the fire being laid down. In their desperate flight they have to deviate from their planned route. They had intended to simply leave the way they came, the simplest and safest way to exit being the way one has made sure is clear. Now, they have to follow Vesper's lead and after some amount of winding through the maze that is this company's R&D, they wind up passing through what seems to be a lab far enough ahead of the building's security that they can slow down and get their bearings - not to mention catch their breath.

  After all it won't do them any good to dart into danger again.

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  They find themselves in a darkened lab, strangely warm, with slightly glowing large glass tubes scattered across the space.

  It's a bit like the earlier server room. And it feels haunted to boot; Torvald senses eyes on him from the moment he steps inside. He soon realizes why; concentrating the vision of his prosthetic eye on the infrared, he detects a number of hotspots around the room.

  One after another he examines the occupants of the thick glass tubes. They're...machine constructs. Prototypes. Monsters? He doesn't know. Too many of them seem almost but not quite human - though of course it's illegal for androids to look too much like people. Either way it seems cruel to keep them trapped like this.

  While the rest of the team is occupied elsewhere Torvald creeps towards a creature in the nearest tube. Given the rest of the other constructs it looks the most nearly normal, though it's clearly a machine. It's covered in plating painted a dull green, with limbs that look human standard length or close enough, and it's dressed in a gray jumpsuit. There aren't any identifying marks on its body though - so probably a unit meant for infiltration, from the little he knows about these constructs.

  While he's looking through the glass the android comes to life, eyes lighting up a faint green, head tilting up a little, faceplate aiming towards him. He doesn't know quite why, but he feels sorry for it - honestly for all these constructs. He...sort of wants to let it free, despite the creeping suspicion that the beings trapped in these tubes are meant as weapons.

  Shit it's the killer nanobots all over again, isn't it?

  The trapped android goes through a little bit of pantomime with him, indicating how he should open the tube for it. All the while Torvald's trying to work out whether he should. Almost of its own volition his hand moves towards the controls.

  Fuck it.

  Everyone takes a step back when the glass tube retracts into the ceiling. "What the hell do you think you're doing?" Feridun demands, training his laser pistol on the android.

  Before Torvald can think of some answer to give him the android raises its hands in a gesture of peace. "I won't hurt anybody, just let me leave this building," it pleads. Its voice is low and electronic, but not unpleasant.

  "Why is that our concern?" Charna grits. She's not - quite - ready to aim her own weapon at the construct, but she doesn't seem ready to let it go either.

  It winds up being a moot point then. Belatedly, a siren in the room starts wailing. "Let's move!" Torvald shouts. "Vesper, find us a way out, we can work this out later!"

  The android pauses, looking around at its fellows. But it must realize there's nothing to be done, not with the alarms going off. For lack of other options, it follows them out of the room.

  They have to get to the extraction point. Unfortunately the route Vesper finds them leads down thirty-five flights of stairs.

  'Not the stairs,' Charna whines. Torvald likes to think he keeps himself in decent shape; he kind of has to, considering his stock in trade is physical fighting. But he too feels his stomach drop at the thought of such a descent.

  Well after the fight they've had there's no going back the way they came in.

  Begrudgingly the weary team starts to descend quick as they can - followed, surprisingly enough, by the android. Perhaps it's following them for lack of anything better to do, or to cut their throats, or any number of other reasons including ones incomprehensible to mere humans. Either way, the blond walks beside it; he won't allow the construct to get the jump on him at least. Not after he was the one to free it.

  During the descent they all learn that the new acquisition is a bit of a chatterbox. They learn its name too, such as it is; E-845.

  It seems rather clinical to Torvald. Everything deserves a name; he's named his own sword, come down to it - Wolfram. But before Torvald can remark on the matter, Vesper speaks up. "Let's move faster folks, the guards from the lower floors are heading upwards and they're likely to send some down the stairwell, especially after we tripped the alarms."

  Even complaining, they hustle double time. Torvald notes in the passing that the android has no trouble keeping up with them; he wonders how good its reflexes are.

  And why was it being kept in a glass tube, with so many monstrous constructs?

  Those questions will have to keep.

  Torvald catches the sound of someone opening a door a few floors above and the team he's with steps it up to double time.

  In the end they win the race. Their prize? They can't get to the data line they entered through because there are bots massing on the first floor, so they have to escape through the godsdamned sewers.

  Ugh. Bad enough that he's already had to do this, but again? None of the rest have had to make a sewer escape before.

  Torvald kind of hopes the android isn't equipped with a sense of smell. At least one of them should not be suffering.

  One by one they drop into the tunnel, afterwards closing off the entrance. They hurry onward, not eager to linger overlong in these stinking tunnels.

  Just as they're about to leave this awful place for freedom, Torvald feels something tap his shoulder. Still keyed up, he whips out his sword and whirls, but it's only the android. It puts its hands up in surrender.

  "I'm going to follow this tunnel further down," E-845 tells him, pointing past the exit they've found.

  Perhaps he shouldn't let it go. It's the only thing they've gained on this half-botched mission, after all, and there'll probably be consequences for the trap they almost fell into - though those are more likely for intelligence than them. Still, he can't quite bring himself to make the android stay.

  Torvald nods slowly. He doesn't quite know what to do with it otherwise.

  Nobody else protests. Perhaps they'll say something in the debriefing, but Torvald doesn't care. He's exhausted, wounded in a couple of places - and dammit he needs a shower more than he's ever needed a shower in his entire life.

  When no one says anything, the android nods and turns to leave. "Thank you for letting me go," it says over its shoulder, and then it walks off.

  Strangely, the blond man has a feeling that this won't be the last he sees of the construct. But he shakes that thought off and follows his team, towards freedom and hopefully a shower.

  The debriefing isn't as painful as he might have expected. Agent Kravchuk shakes his head when Vesper tells him the whole thing was a setup. "Somebody in intel fucked up," the scarred man muses. Then he dismisses them.

  Torvald has the feeling this isn't the last he's heard of the android or this incident. But for the time being, he's simply happy to go home to his snakes and clean the hell up.

  He ends up having to burn that infiltration suit though.