Calico, Raust, and I entered what resembled an office building. By the time we made our way to the reception desk, we had counted at least 40 bodies in the halls and foyer.

"This isn't what I imagined Article C looking like," Calico said.

"This isn't it," I responded, "we're above the real deal. The true facility was always underground; all this office space is a farce."

Raust knelt over a soldier leaned up against the reception desk.

"Someone has been busy in here."

"Someone? Eclaire and Watts didn't kill them?" I asked.

"Nah, that's not their archetype. This scene is too messy. Besides, Eclaire prefers putting people to sleep over killing them."

I knelt with him and unclipped the soldier's helmet. He was dark-skinned, probably in his thirties.

"Check out the damage," Raust began, "nasty bruising all over his face and lacerations on the cheeks and forehead."

"One of his eyes has been gouged," I added.

The eye-gouging was Rain's signature. It was sadistic and sent a message that he wasn't one to be challenged. Though, why would he kill his own men?

"Calico, can you check some of the bodies in the hallway? Take their helmets off, check their eyes," I asked.

"What are you thinking?" Raust responded.

"I think Rain killed these men. At least this guy here."

"Why would he kill off his own pieces? That's how you lose a game."

"That's what I'm not sure about. If Eclaire and Watts were pursuing him, you'd think he'd want the backup," I pondered.

Calico pranced back over to us, a dead soldier in hand that she deposited by our feet. He had an eye gouged as well, from the same socket.

"All of them are like this," Calico said.

I stood up from the bodies and walked around to the other side of the reception desk. I began to fidget with the computer keyboard; thankfully, there was still power to the facility. Calico and Raust watched me inquisitively, both leaning on the counter and trying to see what I was doing.

"Can I help you two?"

"We just didn't think of you as the computer type," Calico answered.

"I used computers a lot while here, actually. I'm hoping the system hasn't changed too much."

To my surprise, the system was almost identical as it had been years ago. The computer was already on the login screen, so I tried my credentials from my time as a prisoner. Before the breakout, another Cambion named Derri had hacked the system to increase our security clearance. As long as my login was still valid, I could access the lobby's security camera footage. Thankfully enough, my credentials went through with no issue.

Calico and Raust gazed like impressed sports fans. Raust was especially shocked.

"What are you? Some hacker?" he asked.

"No, just lucky to have been in the system, I guess."

That was the only time I'd describe myself as being 'lucky' for having experienced this place—years of torture in exchange for getting to watch security cameras, not a fair trade-off, in my opinion. I pulled the files I needed and put them up on the screen. The three of us watched together. Things were calm, with heavily armed guards patrolling the lobby. At the counter, we spotted Rain, talking with a woman in a long, dark coat.

"Wonder who the female NPC is?" Raust questioned.

The two of them exchanged a metal case, and the woman left out the front door.

"That's weird," I mumbled.

"What is?" Calico asked.

"Look at the time stamp on the footage. If this woman left out the front, wouldn't you and Eclaire have seen her leave?"

Calico dropped her chin into her hands, "Yeah, you're right. We didn't see anyone leave the complex."

After the woman left, Rain opened the case on the counter and examined its contents. Unfortunately, it was too far away from the camera to get a good look.

BANG. BANG. BANG.

Shots rang out in the video, shaking the camera. Rain and the soldiers surrounding him switched their attention to the front door, and they readied their weapons.

"This should've been when you were going haywire," Calico chimed in.

"So they're focusing their attention toward the outside guards; let's see what they do."

I pulled up the footage from the courtyard, placing it alongside the footage from the lobby. I saw myself, armed with only a knife, seemingly teleporting around and slicing up the opposition.

"Damn, that's brutal, Sylas," Raust muttered.

I wanted to defend myself, but he was right. The footage was unsettling. I looked lifeless, like a puppet killing with no remorse or empathy. Finally, the rest of the team entered the frame. Calico grabbed my body and pushed me to the ground in the high grass. Eclaire and Watts continued up the stairs while Raust began to handle the remaining soldiers. The video feed cut just as the whirring of the drone became audible.

We continued the video from the lobby as Eclaire and Watts entered. Eclaire activated her arma before a single shot was fired, dropping the dozens of men to the ground in a slump. Watts took the lead, approaching Rain cautiously while Eclaire remained several steps behind. It was clear her arma wasn't working on Rain for some reason. Rain took no action, allowing Watts to grab him by the coat and pin his back on the counter.

Then, Rain's crown activated.

A bright red horn manifested out of his hat, and his eyes burned brightly. Watts jumped back, activating his crown in preparation for what was coming.

"Damn, the old man had to break out his arma?" Raust seemed startled.

"Is that bad?" I asked.

Raust didn't need to answer. The video showed me everything I needed to know. Every soldier that was incapacitated by Eclaire began to rise, then the video cut as they sprayed bullets throughout the lobby.

"Fuck, that's not good! What happened?" I yelled, slamming my hands down on the keyboard.

Raust turned his attention toward the broken camera high on the wall.

"Looks like our footage got caught up in the crossfire."

Calico interjected, "we didn't find Eclaire or Watts bodies. Where would they have gone, Sy?"

Good question. It'd been so long since I was here, and the fire took down most of the facility when I left. However, my experience so far was familiar, and it didn't seem like much had changed. I had a strong feeling Eclaire and Watts weren't dead because our mind link was still working when we were outside. Besides, killing strong Cambions so quickly didn't fit Rain's sadistic personality.

"They must have gone deeper into the facility, underground into the labs."

"How do we get down there?" Calico asked.

I walked away from the computer to the back elevators. The control panel was dim, probably out of order.

"Normally, you'd take the elevator down to the service level. Then, sign into the labs with your credentials."

"That's an easier quest than expected," Raust added.

"Yeah, on paper. But the elevator looks like it's—"

Suddenly, Calico whizzed past me, slamming into the elevator doors and punching a hole through the right side. The momentum she carried with her tossed me on my ass, and she dug both hands in and peeled the right side door out of frame, tossing the metal scraps toward the front of the lobby.

"Fuck, Calico! You almost killed me!" I yelled.

She turned back over her shoulder, glaring with malicious intent.

"You said down, so get your ass up and let's go," she snarled.

Raust helped me up, and I dusted myself off.

"Don't mind her, just don't get in her way," he mumbled to me.

The three of us teetered on the edge of the elevator shaft, looking down into pure blackness.

"The service floor is on the bottom; not sure how deep it is, though," I said.

"Doesn't matter," Calico responded, "we don't have the luxury of caring."

She grabbed Raust and my shoulder, pulling us both with her into the chasm.

It was a magnetic elevator, so there was no large cable in the middle to try and grip too. The only thing that could help our fall was Calico's arma. I was just worried that we'd hit the elevator car before the service floor if it weren't on one of the upper floors. The pressure on my body was intense. Air was blown into me hard, beating my exposed skin raw and nearly ripping the fabric of my clothing. I tried to calm my anxiety by counting: Five, six, seven, eight, nine.

"Hold on!" Calico shouted.

Calico gripped the collar of my coat and yanked me as we stopped just above the ground. All three of us stumbled into the metal flooring, catching our breath on our hands and knees. Calico was panting hard, and she pushed herself up against the elevator shaft wall to keep from falling over. Raust propped himself up slowly with his rifle. We'd made it to the bottom.

"I guess that could've been worse," I panted.

My eyes adjusted quickly to the darkness, though pitch black was still an obstacle, even for Cambion's eyes. The last obstacle for us to conquer was another set of steel elevator doors. Usually, an easy task for our girlish goliath, but she looked weak at the moment.

Shit.

We had managed to avoid running into the elevator car, but that meant it was above us somewhere. If it came loose or were called down for some reason, we'd be seconds away from death.

"What do we do now? Our muscle is tanked," Raust sighed.

Calico attempted to lift herself, only to slip back down the wall.

"Don't push yourself," I said, "take a breather while Raust and I think this through."

What to do, what to do? Our time was limited, and we didn't know what the limit was. I scanned my surroundings as best I could with limited light, but there wasn't much to observe. The elevator shaft was less than 2 meters wide, with metal plates extending as high up as I could see. Strangely, I couldn't make out any bolts holding them into place.

"Find something?" Raust asked.

"No. More like a lack of something. All the metal siding in here seems to be just floating. There are no bolts or screws anywhere."

"So?"

"So, this is a magnetic elevator. The elevator car itself is magnetized, sticking to the siding and applying magnetic force up or down to move."

"What does that have to do with the missing bolts?" he inquired.

"They aren't missing," I answered, "they were never there. These metal plates are magnetized to the shaft as well."

I began feeling the walls, going to every corner and every side, knocking on the metal like the door to a home.

Clink. Clink. Clink. Clink.

"Sylas, what are you—"

Clang!

Bingo! Found it. A metal plate with a hollow backing, meaning it was encasing something.

"Raust, use your arma on this spot," I pointed, "tell me if there is a flow of heat there."

Raust slung the rifle over his shoulder again and activated his arma.

"Yeahh, I see a thin line of heat. It goes all the way up to the top, looks like."

My suspicion was right. I had noticed when Calico broke the door in the lobby that it had ripped off in evenly cut chunks. It was a hunch, but magnets tend to break evenly due to their chemical makeup. Breaking one won't lead to sharding because their natural composition wants to hold them together.

"The doors are magnetic, not electric," I mumbled.

With that being the case, the doors were shut by magnetic force and not electrical motors. So, when the elevator car lowered to the bottom, it's own magnetic force would cancel out the doors, allowing them to repel and open.

"So, what's the deal with the wall?" Raust asked.

"It's an electrical current. The flow of electricity is what creates the magnetism for the elevator shaft."

"How does knowing that help us?"

"If you use your arma on this point in the wall to superheat it, we should be able to create a magnetic field that will cancel out the doors."

"That's a thing?" Raust doubted.

Thermomagnetism, something I'd learned about from a book in my father's library. By changing the electrical current's temperature, we would also change the density of the magnetic field. It wasn't a perfect plan, but if the shaft's magnetism didn't match the doors, they'd be forced to repel.

"It is. But there's only one issue."

"Love hearing that," Raust responded.

I sighed and pushed my hand through my hair.

"If we open the door this way, the change will likely let loose the elevator car above us."

"Great, so we only have a few seconds to get through the door before we're crushed," Raust inferred.

The thought of being crushed didn't sit well with me either. It would fall fast and demolish us, but I didn't see another way of getting out unless we waited for Calico to regain her energy.

"Alright," Raust continued, "let's give it a shot then."

I took Raust's rifle and hooked his harness to mine. Calico was barely conscious. What the hell? Did the door and the fall take that much out of her? It looked like I'd have to carry her out of this oversized trash compactor. I helped her up over my other shoulder and positioned myself in front of the doors.

"As soon as these things open, I'm getting us through, then retracting the harness."

Raust nodded, then focused his attention toward the spot on the wall I had pointed out. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, then glared into the metal. I could hear a slight sizzling as a hot spot began to form, making the siding glow dim red. The temperature started to rise around us. I was sweating bullets, and we only had one chance to make this work.

Creeeeeeeeeak.

The walls groaned as the pressure within began to change. The metal plates began to vibrate slightly as the hotspot on the wall melted from the heat, boring a hole exposing the electrical wiring.

Creeeeeeeeeak.

Fwoosh.

The doors swung open, shooting apart from each other violently. I quickly tossed Calico and the rifle through the opening.

Screeeeeeeeeeeach.

The elevator car was falling fast, and the entire shaft became illuminated by the sparks from above. I leaped out, turned, and slammed my hand into the retractor, yanking Raust off of his feet. He toppled over me, the force of the retraction rolling us both further into the hallway. The elevator car crashed down, smashing concrete and metal bits everywhere. Dust and smoke bombarded the hallway, engulfing the three of us in a thick smog of debris and destruction.

I was hacking into my sleeve, trying to keep the dust out of my lungs. My eyes burned, and my head felt like it was splitting.

"Raust," I coughed, "are you okay?"

Nothing.

I struggled off the floor, straining my eyes to try and find someone amongst the wreckage.

"Raust! Calico! If you can hear me, speak up!"

Still no response. I took a step and felt a sharp pang shoot up my left leg, forcing me back down to one knee.

"Ow, shit. Did I break something?"

The smoke started to fade, revealing the trashed service hallway. I saw the rifle, pressed into a corner meters away from where I'd thrown it.

"Sylas!" Calico screamed.

Where did it come from? I still couldn't see fully; my eyes were irritated, and despite the smoke clearing, my vision was still obscured.

"Sylas! Where are you? Raust is hurt, bad!"

Shit.

I pressed my leg down and stood up against the pain. I followed her voice, stumbling into the cold tile walls to help guide me. This place felt oddly like the old tunnels I used to live in like someone had turned an old railway system into a makeshift hospital. Finally, I escaped the rubble and stumbled upon a set of glass double doors locked by a keypad. Calico was on the ground, with her back pressed to the wall, holding Raust's head in her lap.

"Calico! Is he breathing?" I asked frantically, hobbling over to them.

"Barely. What the hell happened?" she winced.

Raust looked bad. He was unconscious, his chest barely rising from weak and fading breaths. His closed eyes had dried blood at the corners, and it looked like he'd been struck with something on the head, leaving a shallow gash beneath his bangs. Worst of all, his right leg was mangled and his pants torn and bloody.

"Get his coat off," I blurted, and Calico did what I said.

I pulled the knife I had been carrying with me and sliced off one of the sleeves. The field jackets we were given in Dead Circus were made from a sturdy kevlar and canvas blend, so the fabric was firm. I took the scraps of the arm and tied it off around his upper thigh.

"This will stop any bleeding and hopefully save his leg."

How ironic that the things I'd learned in Article C would be helpful to us now. I knotted the sleeve tight and wrapped my coat around Raust's torso.

"Calico, keep an eye on Raust. If you can, get away from here and find us another way out."

"Me? What are you getting at?"

"I'm going to find Eclaire and Watts. I know the layout best. This was my world; I'll find them and get us all out of here."

"You can't go by yourself," she protested.

I ignored her, walking to the keypad and entering the code Derri had given me when we were to break out. My finger moved slowly, lingering on each button, dreading the possibility it wouldn't work.

Click. Click. Click. Click. Bing.

As if by some intervention by a higher power, the keypad lit up green and the glass doors slid open. I stepped through as Calico struggled to set Raust down and pursue me. She slammed both hands into the door as it closed behind me, and I turned to see sympathetic eyes, not angry ones.

She mouthed two words to me, and I nodded before heading into the unknown.

Come back.