Marching with a mask on is far more stressful than Clare ever could have imagined. It's choking out her every breath, and she struggles to pull in enough air to keep the pace. Occasionally checking behind her shoulder in the alleys, she finds the man hole right where she expected it, three blocks down and one to the right; she tripped on it once as a kid. With a sigh, Clare double checks her map to make sure it’s the right one, then flips her pack around to retrieves her gloves. She's seen her dad after work enough times to know this is going to get messy.

The oversized thick gloves slide on easily, but she knows that'll be the quickest part of this. She lowers herself into the cover's metal bars, and lifts. It's of the sort of unbearable weight that is both physically and psychologically intimidating. The slime-slick refuse caked into the handles makes it so slippery and difficult to handle, Clare is helpless to do anything but nervously clam at the pair of handles, avoiding her grasp with disgusting ease. She tries for the better part of a minute, and leans back with a sigh.

"This is so stupid," she groans under her breath. Just before trying again, she realizes she's not making use of the tools she has at her disposal. She gets up with a dignified lift, removing the already vomitous gloves from her hands. "Carrie."

"...Address recognized."

"Lift that."

"...Define term: 'that'."

She points at the man hole. "That is the cover."

"...Define term: 'cover'."

"Really?"

"...I do not u-"

"This! Right here!" She pats down on the grate.

"...I do not understand your terminology. Please rephrase inquiry."

She takes a deep breath. Clare needs to use full sentence commands, of course. "Okay... okay: what is this, Carrie?"

Carrie looks down. "That is a forged disk of metal, covering an entry way of some sort."

Clare fixes her fingers together, the gloves pointing forward with a squish. "Can you lift this object?"

"I can attempt lift that object."

There's a short pause with Clare looking between Carrie and the manhole cover.

"Okay. Will you lift the object?"

"...It is not in my current directives to lift said object."

She takes a deep, deep breath, and sighs. No sooner does she do this, does she notice a figure in the mist emerging two blocks down, its pace slow, but measured right in their direction. From its gait and the weight to its steps, it's clear that it's an automaton.

Her mind clicks into overdrive. "Define object as 'cover'," she says, her tone now flat and quickened.

"...Definition accepted."

"Lift cover."

"...Lifting." Carrie steps up to the cover, smashes its fingers into the gap between the cover and the entrance, and flips the cover up like nothing. "Lift complete."

Clare glances away from the approaching figure, fumbles out her light, and clicks it on to check below. The smell is unbelievably bad, even through the mask, but she doesn't care. With a rush of adrenaline, she starts down the ladder and into the system. The moment before she descends, she makes out even more figures appearing from the mist, each of them heading their way.

"Replace cover," she says.

"... Replacing," Carrie says, at least smart enough to step down inside before putting it back over their heads.

"O-" she pulls in a nerve-wracked breath. "Okay it should be... th-this way," Clare instructs, working over the map with her putrefaction-covered gloves. With a firm step forward, she starts down the gross blackness of the sewer, coffin-black by all save her collar light and Carrie's managraphed faceplate, shining dully in the corpse-scented dark.

The two go through the sewage-slicked paths of Everhold's refuse system, only half an idea in Clare's head about their bearings. The walled kingdom is eight kilometers in diameter, so it takes her nearly thirty minutes to figure out the general orientation and reach the lit, however dimly, halls of the substation system.

"Here we are," she states with relief. "I guess it's just..." she looks at the map again, and looks to the side of the wall, she's already near substation six, lucky her. "I guess this is next to... agricultural?" She reorients herself to make sure they'll go the right way and starts northward along the sloped hall. In only a minute, they pass by the side tunnel for substation six. She looks down and sees a lit, whirring room filled with complex magi-tech machinery. "Not far now," she says, the moment she feels a little rumble on her thigh— her chat stone.

She picks it up, takes a deep breath, and activates the voice.

"Hello?" She asks, halfway expecting the voice of an automaton.

"You sound nervous," Waine says through the brightening, chained jewel. "Where are you now? Have you gone i-"

"Y- I..." She clears her throat while traveling down the hall. "N-no. I don't think I'm going to go through with it after all."

"Thank god, dude!" He exclaims in relief. "That was such a stupid idea. Okay well tomorrow let's meet back up. I got a shit-load of notes an-"

"Hey, I'll see you later," Clare interrupts. She hears something coming from down the hall.

"Wait, why?"

"I'm... I'm busy."

"Busy wh-"

"Sleeping."

"You don't sound very sle-" is all he can get out before she shoves his voice back into her pocket. She strains her hearing to the footsteps.

"An auto," she says.

It rounds the corner, and it's clearly a semi-social, the small band of paint around its arm designating it as having that feature.

She shrugs. "Okay. Administrator argument," she says with a confident, expectant tone.

The automaton, locking on to Clare, marches straight for her without stopping; in fact she's almost sure its picking up speed.

"Administrator argument!" She repeats, making sure her voice is carrying through her mask.

No stop, no ping, nothing but the steady steps forward.

The moment she takes a step back, the auto breaks into a sprint. She's never in her life seen an auto move so quickly; it defies all logic.

"Carrie, run!" She cries, starting for the opposite way the same moment she hears a dense, industrial crash. She looks around just in time to see the industrial auto fall to its knees, its faceplate removed and smashed through by Carrie's steel hands.

The auto crooks over to its side, convulses a moment, and with a final jolt, its managraphy loses its glow into a dead, cold gray.

"Target neutralized," Carrie says in a dead drone, but with critical emphasis on the word ‘neutralized’ as if Carrie is intelligent enough to appreciate the idea of violence.

Clare looks down in at the tarnished auto, a steady cloud of dust still trailing from its face from where Carrie slammed into it.

"Holy shit."

"...I do not understand your termino-"

"That's..." she coughs. "Good job, Carrie."

"Thank you, Clare."

"Why didn't it stop?"

"I do not know."

"This is weird," she says with an unsettled, abrupt tone.

Without another word, Clare passes by the instantly derelict automaton to continue towards substation seven. Like before, Carrie steps right behind her, keeping closer over her shoulder matching her exact pace.

She continues down no more than a minute before she hears it, the haunting din that will torment her for her journey.

It's a faint, crowded, crumbling sort of noise.

"Do you... do you hear that?"

"...Hear what?”

"That noise."

"...Yes. I do."

"Well, what do you make of it?"

"I think we should continue."

Clare sighs, shakes her head, and leaves it at that.

Just around the bend are the signs, capitalized warnings stretching on into the dark. She clicks her light back on, and gasps. Just past the signed off area she can see it. The blue-shaded light make it even easy to spot the dark, splattering marks, uncleaned, dried over, and left for what could be ages.

"Wh-" she marches up to it at a quickened pace. "Carrie, what's this?" She points.

Carrie walks up to the wall and draws its finger across, just as the crumbling sound from around them picks up slightly in decibel.

"...It is human blood," it says dryly.

Clare pushes a closed fist to her chest. "D-do you know whose?"

"...I do not understand yo-"

"Follow me," she commands shortly, not with enough patience to listen to it repeat the same phrase over and over. The mark of blood could be anyone’s, after all; she can’t panic over the smallest things.

The two push on through the darkening way, more and more trails of blood are present, intermittent with huge, person-sized splattering. If it weren't scary enough, this is finally the fulfillment of Clare's darkest fears. The rumors, the whispered tales of loss; they were all true. People died down here, and one of them could be her mom.

This is as bad as she can imagine it, however the reality will stretch far, far deeper than she is presently capable of grasping. She will find what lies in substation seven, but not all of her will make the trip.

In the darkest park of the substation, Clare finally shines her light on the enlarged text print of "Substation 7".

She doesn't say anything, just starts down the way. Her pace slows down to a weary, mouse-like gait. The dried blood is practically painted throughout the tight hallway. Either a lot of people have been out through here, or in, it has to be one or the other in her mind.

"Oh god," she whimpers, slowing down even more through the hall, her footsteps sticking to the carpet of rotten blood. Not just blood, she can smell, but anything a human might contain has been strewn along this hallway, carelessly splattered by the hands of a machine no doubt.

Finally, her imagination overtakes her. Like a clock ticking steadily in reverse back to its first midnight, she feels a primal urge overcome her; a heightened sense of constant, expectant dread. She just knows there is a terrible something nearby, waiting to shatter her view of the world forever and cast her into an abyss. She knows it is the truth. Deep in her subconscious, she begins to believe in gods other than the immortal King Victor, and they are all wicked, surely. Going through the hall of blood leading down to substation seven, Clare cannot help but slow to a crawl in the middle of the tunnel, leading the way in front of Carrie which, despite its obvious strength, will not be able to protect her from what she's about to find.

"Please be okay, momma," Clare whispers under her breath, finally stopping cold in the disease-filled tunnel.

"...We should increase our pace," Carrie suggests, apparently quite aware of some horrible threat that she isn't.

She takes a deep breath, reeled into herself with a pathetic shiver. "Why?"

"...Our objective, once acknowledged by 'Clare', must be attained as soon as possible."

"Great, but why?!" She whimpers, the rumbling sound becoming ever louder.

"...'Clare' may be neutralized, thus rendering objective null."

"Wh-" Clare understands perfectly well what Carrie is saying, but she refuses to believe it.

"Are you... do you think I'm about to be… killed?"

"...I do no-" Carrie stops its error message, this time by its own volition. "We have run out of time," it says, the rumbling noise from behind them finally gaining enough definition to be identified.

Clare straightens herself as she looks around Carrie's shoulder. From the darkness behind them, a dozen managraphic sight plates are visible from the dark, each owned by a soulless, single-minded automaton. They're all moving straight for her.

"No... No!" Clare shouts, tripping backwards and covering her backside with the petrified blood and other fluids from a dozen people. She struggles to get to her feet, slipping through the muck before regaining a wavering balance. "Come on!" She screams in command, running forward with a slipping stride forward.

Carrie continues right behind her through the dark, the mad approach of the machines completely overtaking her hearing like a tidal wave of walking metal.

Slipping and stumbling forward, she outruns the group with Carrie, but only for a moment when they begin picking up pace, their sickly green visors reappearing from the dark.

"No, oh god, please no!" She shouts on the brink of tears, the very moment a light emerges at the end of the tunnel. It's bright, so wonderfully bright. "The way out! Carrie, come on!" She exclaims with a victorious cheer, resorting to an almost-slide across the slippery bricks while maintaining a steady pace.

Carrie says nothing until the very end, when it enters its actual vision. "...'Clare' user should get behind 'Carrie' system."

"What? No!" She scoffs, the feint glow of their pursuers still just barely visible behind them.

"...This is an emergency."

"Yeah big surprise," she snarks just as she reaches the edge of the tunnel. "Any more ingenious dedud-" Clare swallows her breath and turns around in a tripping spin, her momentum sliding her ever further, ever closer.

In front of her in the substation room is an automaton, untellably-old and clicking back and forth in what seems to be a glitched route. It stands resolute in its purpose, whatever that is, with its managraphed faceplate shining out like a bluish floodlight.

She only has seconds to decide, and decides to do what her mother did.

Clare springs forward with a deep, held breath. She knows a glitched auto shouldn't act upon her presence, but this is all too weird.

Carrie is going forward as well, but at a sprint to close the distance between the two of them.

The second she passes through the tight spot next to the auto, it reaches for her with the speed only a machine could produce. In a barely perceived, confused second, Clare very clearly feels a forceful grip being placed on the skin of her neck, only to stop the second Carrie tackles the auto and crushes its solid skull.

It was only a touch for an auto, but to Clare, and another person, the contact draws a rush of blood from the point where it grabbed her. She slaps her hand to her neck in immediate pain before slamming against the wall in a sudden moment of confusion.

"C-oh no," she mutters senselessly between gasps. "That's bad, that's really bad."

Carrie rises up from the wreckage of the erroneous auto. "Target neutralized. Inquiry: Status Report for 'Clare' User."

"I..." She winces, arching her neck over to try to cover more of the wound. "I don't know. Am I going to die?"

The automaton looks over to the hallway, the pursuing group has almost arrived, visors blaring like murderous cindering coals, as they approach the bulkhead door. "...'Clare' user is incapable of expiration."

Clare's not sure what to say as her vision starts graying out into those blotting, confused impressions of the world around her. The noise starts to muffle, and she feels too weak to stand up. All she remembers is seeing the door.

"Close the door," she says simply, "close the door."

There's a pause. She cannot even hear what Carrie says, but from the shadows of the hallway, lit demoniacally by the gazes of the automaton mob, there's a great thud, followed by a cacophony of smaller, dense beats.

A few misty seconds pass, and she feels an automaton grab her. Her subconscious tells her this is the end, that she's about to be torn to shreds and found weeks later in some designated refuse pile, but the grasp is so unbelievably gentle, it's almost like a person. Far from the separation of nerves she was expecting, she suddenly feels light. She screams anyway, and curls into herself as best she can.