Without a word, the group stood at Reina’s instruction and followed her towards the stairs. Nina had questions to ask after Ormain’s story, but she also knew that now wasn’t the time. Filing down the stairs with the group before setting foot in the lobby, she looked out over the dim interior to find that there were now quite a few people sitting around. Soldiers, she realised, all dressed in the same attire as the guards who had been standing on the front door. They were surprisingly relaxed, loitering around and joking with each other while playing cards with their weapons sitting on the tables, occasionally glancing at the door.

“There’s like… thirty of them,” Aline muttered as Reina ignored the small army in the lobby and continued further down the stairs. Following them down, Nina found herself in the basement where the gentle hum of the generators rang through the passage. While walking through a cool corridor with a grey stone floor, Nina began to see just where all the soldiers had come from.

It seemed as though they were in a Network barracks of sorts. A series of sleeping and dining areas sat on each side, some of which were still occupied. Nina guessed that there was another twenty or so men as she roughly counted them while the group moved past, most of them gearing up and filing out in the direction of the stairs that they had come from. It seemed that their server’s comment about Ormain not being an issue wasn’t baseless after all. Even if they decided to bring the anthill down upon them, they’d be met by a small army.

“Why does SuTSU leave these guys alone?” she asked Aline who walked in front of her. They turned a corner at the end of the hall and began to descend another set of stairs, the air becoming cooler yet again while the lights were fewer and further between. Nina now understood why Reina hadn’t been concerned about Ormain’s presence - they wouldn’t be leaving the building at all. Well, not at ground level at least.

“Wardens aren’t going to risk their lives for the trouble,” Aline replied. “As long as Network don’t openly try and take control of the town, they’re actually doing them a favour by essentially policing it for them. Less work for them and they don’t even need to leave home.”

“But we’re dropping through from here, right? Isn’t that something they would want to have for themselves?”

“The shaft isn’t here. SuTSU would have found it first if it was,” Aline said as they continued to descend. They must have been at least ten meters underground by now, the red stone walls from before now replaced by rammed earth. “They would know that it’s connected, but again, they wouldn’t care. Unless some SuTSU bigwig comes down and cracks the whip, nothing will change. And I can sure as hell say that no SuTSU bigwig is going to want to come down here.”

“No responsibility at all?” Nina grumbled as the group filed through one last door to find themselves in a long rectangular space that stretched away from them. It was a tunnel, she realised. With a dim light set into the wall every five or so meters, the tunnel which was around two meters wide and equally as high stretched away from them. A set of thin rails ran down the centre which disappeared into the darkness, while a makeshift carriage of sorts sat on top. It was more a row of seats in a single file mounted to a set of axles than anything else, but Nina had come to realise that just about everything in the badlands was crudely made but functional.

“Not really,” Aline said as her eyes focused on the carriage. “Anthills are mainly for appearances as SuTSU don’t really care about what happens below Neo Luesa. They can essentially dump whatever they want on Zaffre’s as there isn’t any way for people to come back up. The Skywall on the other hand… well you saw how seriously they take that.”

“Why does Network want to control them then?”

“So you can charge a fortune to use them, obviously,” Jade chimed in, although her expression straightened as the man from the counter appeared behind them.

“Take a seat,” he said as his gaze stopped on Jade. She pretended to ignore it as he moved to the corner of the room to stand by a lever which protruded from the wall. “You know how it works, enjoy your trip and we’ll see you again soon.”

“Are you guys still going to be here next time?” Trim asked as she slid into one of the plastic seats, almost like something Nina would have expected to see in a school. “It’s pretty obvious that the way through is here.”

“We already have a reserve tunnel, but I doubt we’ll need it,” the man replied dismissively as he watched them climb into the seats. There were ten seats in total and the group left the first three empty, filling the rest with Svanda at the front. Nina, who had been at the back of the group as they filed into the tunnel, sat in the seat at the rear.

“See you next time then,” Reina smiled as she sat behind Svanda, the last to take her seat. “Thanks for everything.”

“It’s all part of the service,” the main said as he threw the switch, watching in silence as the vehicle rolled away from him into the distance, carrying the members of The Cloud Orchestra with it.

---

“They’re not coming out,” Shalan said to Ormain as her eyes remained locked on Juicer’s front door. “There must be another exit.”

“They could be waiting inside,” he offered in response before sighing. “But I doubt that, they’re not stupid.”

“A tunnel then,” Shalan concluded. “Should we interrogate someone?”

“No point,” Ormain waved his hand with a dismissive gesture before turning to face the rest of his group. They had only been waiting at the front of Juicer for around two hours since his conversation with Reina, yet his team had already had enough. Besides the lieutenant who didn’t seem to mind waiting, nobody else in the rest of his group had the patience to sit around among the degenerates that walked the streets, Ormain included.

“Lysalya, go and collect the lieutenant, I’ve had enough of this,” he said before pointing in the direction of the SuTSU base which sat on the hill in the distance. “We’ll take that sorry excuse of a car back to them and try again on Zaffre’s, Network won’t be able to do anything there.”

“You don’t want to mess with Network, but you don’t mind messing with the Royal Guard?” Lysalya asked as she stood up. “Most people would tell you that you’re crazy, you know.”

“Maybe, but this team isn’t made of most people is it?” he asked in response before the grin on Lysalya’s lips provided him with the answer. “The Royal Guard isn’t going to follow us back to Luem, while Network will. Easy call if you ask me,” he shrugged. “I’m going to bring that woman back with us one way or another.”

Lysalya smiled before crossing the dusty street and disappearing down the side of the building. Ormain had hoped to intercept The Cloud Orchestra before they had contacted Network, but unfortunately their contacts had been too slow. He wasn’t surprised that the people in the badlands were just as useless as they looked, but he could wait. It was disappointing, but at least he had achieved one goal, which was to pitch a role at SuTSU to Nina. Their work would be simple if she accepted and even if she didn’t, his offer would have unsettled her. Sowing distrust amongst the group had value.

“Why don’t we just kill them all?” Shalan asked as she dropped her head onto Ormain’s shoulder. He smiled, although he knew she couldn’t see his reaction. It seemed her lengthy probation – which Grant had to get her out of, hadn’t done her any good at all.

“You’re that worried about me bringing another woman home?” he chuckled before wrapping an arm around her waist. “Unfortunately, a corpse isn’t going to give us the answers that we’re looking for.”

The two suits that sat behind them stood up as Lysalya reappeared with the lieutenant in tow, following Ormain as they fanned out across the street. Moving at a leisurely pace, he eyed the local fortress which sat upon the hill in the distance, smiling to himself as he noticed that the people before him scattered as they approached. It felt good, parting the crowd without needing to rely on a uniform that stirred fear in the majority of people for once.

“They’re not going to be happy to see us again so soon,” Shalan said as she took a roll from one of the stalls that they passed. She didn’t bother paying, as nobody was going to ask her to when her shoulder holsters were easily visible. She frowned after taking a bite, tossing it over her shoulder while muttering that the food in the badlands was just as sour as the people that made it.

“They’ll live,” Ormain shrugged as they turned a corner and entered a small stone building which was a disused SuTSU relay. After filing though the empty living area, they stepped into the adjoined garage before climbing into the oversized dune buggy that sat there. Painted brown with a large SuTSU logo on the front, SuTSU buggies were famous in the badlands as being synonymous with the wardens, and trouble by extension. Ormain watched as the lieutenant keyed the ignition and thumbed the garage release before easing them out onto the street and accelerating in the direction of the nearby fortress.

“So what’s the plan then?” Lysalya asked as she looked back on the pass once they hit the outskirts with a look of distaste on her face. Like Shalan, she had smooth shoulder length hair, the submachine gun that dangled from a shoulder strap a matching black. With a modest frame that was covered by a white long sleeved shirt and olive green cargo pants, she was the second-highest ranked member of Ormain’s group. Not that rank seemed to mean anything to Ormain, his blatant favouritism for Shalan despite her controversial antics was well known.

“They won’t skip through Zaffre’s,” he replied. “Pretty much everyone that runs through the plates spends at least a week or two there doing work so we’ll have time to find them, although we won’t be able to use SuTSU channels - it will raise questions about what we’re doing there and I don’t want anyone else even getting a sniff of what’s going on.”

SuTSU had built a road between the fortress and the pass, but it clearly didn’t see much use as the buggy bounced across a couple of stones. Ormain found the heat rather unpleasant, and there was probably sand in his hair too.

“Well, I certainly won’t be upset to see the back of this place,” Lysalya echoed his thoughts as she turned back to face the SuTSU fortress that they were rapidly approaching. “One visit to Sandscale Pass is enough for this lifetime and the next one too.”

“Too true,” Ormain chuckled as they reached the fortress. The group smiled as the lieutenant impatiently banged on the horn a couple of times before the heavy steel door before them began to raise into the ceiling.

“Alright then,” Lysalya smiled. “Nina one, Ormain zero.”

“Luck,” Shalan spat. “We were handicapped.”

“That was just the warmup,” Ormain consoled her with a pat on the shoulder. Shalan may have been volatile, erratic, and difficult to control, but he knew that their meeting with Nina had pushed her in the right direction. He wouldn’t tell her, but besides pitching his offer to Nina, their confrontation had also ticked off another box. A bloodhound was what he needed right now, and Reina’s dismissive attitude had lit a fire underneath her.

The stage had been set. It was time for the real hunt.