By the time I got to the police station I could see the sun beginning to creep over the horizon, making everything shine like gold. I was running out of time to find something useful and get back to the city of Bastion, the guilds likely having regrouped at this point while those outside kept an eye out for me. I would've been able to work faster with a shovel, but my hands still worked well enough despite the injuries I'd sustained.

Rock after rock was put to the side as I dug down further and further toward what I hoped would be a basement. Before I knew it I was sitting in a hole listening to gunfire and shouting while the sun had risen higher into the sky. My head injury luckily disappeared, alleviating my immediate need for medicine even though my leg and shoulder hadn't improved whatsoever.

Hiding amidst the rubble made the work I was doing slow, players roaming by, talking and laughing with each other. I spent the time not progressing by heating up the sewing needle to sterilize it and sewing my wounds closed. My health had come back slowly, dipping just a little as I carefully sutured the wound closed, replacing blood soaked bandages with semi-fresh ones.

Rock after rock, minute after minute I dug down further into the rubble, becoming completely hidden so that even as I worked, picking up one stone at a time and placing it somewhere else, the noise I made went unnoticed. I even found a nice piece of rebar with some concrete on the end that would make a nice club or hammer, so I put it to the side to take with me if and when I left. I'd have to modify it a bit though, considering the hammer was bent and the ridges would bite into my hand if I swung it hard enough.

What I was doing here might as well have been futile, but I'd seen some police stations in crime shows that had autopsies performed in basements, so why wouldn't they have an armory located in one? It was all guesswork, but between guesswork and the warzone that seemed to rage outside my hole, the former felt like the better option.

My hands were rough and caked with dust as I found myself maybe half a dozen feet into the rubble, my right hand feeling just a little less stiff with all the work I'd been doing. The sun beat down on me, the virtual heat causing me to sweat just a bit, which I didn't even know could happen in virtual reality.

I continued to shift the concrete around from top to bottom, taking breaks when the need arose, hiding in a hole I'd dug out from underneath one of the larger slabs of rubble when players, NPCs, or monsters were too close for comfort. Nobody seemed all that interested in the remains of a broken down building though, allowing me to continue my efforts unnoticed.

It was in this way that I eventually shifted so much concrete that night fell once more, the gunfire tapering off as less players came out to scavenge. It took quite some time but I finally uncovered the first step of a staircase, feeling pleased with either my brilliance or my luck. Despite all the dangers that had surrounded me throughout the day, I had been far more relaxed than I was when being shot at or losing my grip on reality. Just move a rock, then move another. Easy enough to do, and very therapeutic.

It took another twenty minutes before I cleared enough rubble to crawl down into the darkness, lighter in hand.

-------------------------

You have discovered a hidden area through continuous work.

Your efforts have rewarded you with one hundred credits.

--------------------------

It was a pitiful amount of money to earn for spending my time in a dangerous hellhole, but it was still money. I chalked it up to being a bonus including whatever I found down here.

There was dust all over the place, including the floor, the walls, and covering the lightbulbs on the ceiling. The hole I'd made was just barely enough for me to wriggle my way through, shifting every so often as rocks tumbled down inside, my left hand holding a lighter while my right hand pointed forward with the barrel of my Cobra. These movements tore open the sutures I'd put in place, a three second bleed debuff appearing. I sighed inwardly as I stood up and dusted myself off, making a mental note to redo the sutures later.

While I didn't really expect anything to be in here, being reckless had already gotten me into a do or die situation against a guild, likely sparking some sort of manhunt in the future. For now, I'd choose caution over adventure.

By poking around the area I found a series of doors were electronically locked with keypads and keycard readers. The only door I found unlocked was an electrical room that held a generator and several other things I couldn't hope to understand without in depth research.

The door swung closed slowly, the latch audibly clicking back into place as I ventured further in, looking at pipes and cables that snaked up from the floor and into the wall. There was a robot that lay nearby, marked with obvious police symbols, looking more like a mechanical skeleton than anything else, painted a deep blue and gold with angled armor plating covering its entire torso.

In its hand was a handgun that looked eerily familiar. The top part of the gun was smooth, the ejection port for the bullets on the right side. The grip was this slightly angled bit of metal with plastic screwed onto the sides. The first thing it made me think of was a gun that originated in the first world war, but I couldn't be certain.

It had no trigger guard or sights to speak of, and I couldn't even find the safety on it. Shrugging, I pulled it from the police bots cold grasp and put it in my pack with everything else. My pack was getting pretty full at this point, but I was really hoping to find at least one more thing before heading back.

It was for this reason that I searched the rest of the room, finding a locker that contained a keycard to potentially get into some of the other rooms, along with a control panel for what I could only assume was the backup generator if not the main one. It was made up of several different buttons and switches that I had no idea how to operate. None of them were even labeled, making things more confusing.

"And this is why we learn the basics of being an electrician. Otherwise you can't turn it off and on again." I muttered while brushing my thumb over each button, not sure which one to push. "Fuck it." I pushed each button and pulled each switch on the panel. There were several that did nothing at all, while one made a slight grinding noise and another that didn't move at all, but one of them on near the center of the left side caused the machine to sputter for a moment.

I pushed it twice more to the same result, and tried each button again a bit more slowly this time. After five minutes of attempting to figure out what felt like a rhythm game I finally managed to turn it on. It slowly came to live, the lights in the room illuminating everything dimly.

I also found out that the police bought wasn't simply lying against the wall, but resting against a charging port. This meant that when the lights came on, it did too.

Seeing it slowly rising to its feet, I ripped the Blackout from my pack and started spraying bullets into the damn thing, throwing it back against the wall as I stalked forward, firing burst after burst into the metal framework until the gun ran out of lead to spit. Casings littered the floor as it fell back to the ground with a clatter of metal limbs.

I looked toward the door and then back at the casings, remembering my failure to grab them earlier. Instead of picking them up one by one I just shovelled them all together into the backpack along with the now empty submachine gun.

The hall outside of the electrical room wasn't lit very well which in hindsight, was a blessing for me. Light shining out of some rubble wouldn't be very inconspicuous, and I didn't really feel like getting shot at again.

The lights that were on were dim at best, the others all burnt out or too old to turn on. The keypads and keycard readers were my next target, a few of both still working after who knew how much time. Grabbing some leftover concrete to act as door stoppers in case they didn't stay that way, I checked the keycard against every functioning reader.

Three worked while the last one failed to read the card regardless of how many attempts I made. I propped the working doors open with my new door stoppers, praying that there wasn't a working alarm in this place and that the gunshots from earlier would go unnoticed.

The first room I checked was just a break room, confusing me as to why it even needed a keycard reader since the most it had were a few tables, a vending machine, and an empty coffee pot.

The second room was a bit similar to the autopsy rooms I'd seen in crime shows, though this one seemed to have far more in common with an operating room than the empty rooms with only some basic equipment that I'd always been entertained by.

The third room however was the on-site archives. There were shelves and shelves filled with binders, all numbered and lettered, but not labeled directly. My only guess was that I'd found the electrical room, found the archives room, and now I'd have to find the keypad combination somewhere in all this mess. Luckily there was a desk for me to work with.

I pulled the concrete from the open door and let it close, locking automatically and leaving me in darkness. I lit my vanilla scented candle and placed it on the corner of the desk so as not to be in the way, using the two others to light up various parts of the room.

File after file was pulled and flipped through, reading as gibberish if not being entirely blank. It was just a game after all, so having comprehensive case files would be a bit much.

The finished binders and folders were stacked off to the side, letting them pile up on the floor as I went through them. I even began making up my own little stories for what each file might have been. Cases of theft, drug possession, gang violence, that sort of thing. As I was checking the last shelf I found a particular binder that was both a different color to the rest and also had a bookmark stuck into it.

My lips pressed together, my expression like solid stone, I pulled it out and flipped to the page where the bookmark rested. Inside was a sticky note reminding officers of the combination to the keypads in case of emergency. I just sat there and stared at it for awhile, feeling absolutely pleased with myself for spending as much time as I had looking through nonsensical binders and folders, so bored that I made up stories about what they meant. I definitely did not throw it against the ground and stomp on it several times.

I calmly left the room, my revolver sweeping the hallway as I softly walked to the only functioning keypad, punched in the combination, and entered through the door. I had been hoping for an armory. I hadn't been expecting to find the evidence room.

"Jackpot."