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Location: Falsetto, KnightsTower, Archives

Time: 18:25pm.

Year: 2180, March 14th.

We both burst into the large metal cube that made up the Archives; Me, Elise, against all the mechs that were in our way. They didn't stand a chance.

I spun to the right, taking cover behind one of the large, metal support beams around the room. Elise had the same idea, but took the left side, already starting to let out a few short bursts of bullets at the mechs surrounding the area. It took them quite a while to respond to our presence, by which time we were already behind cover and shooting back at them. That was why I preferred the common soldier; they responded quicker.

I ducked out of cover for two seconds, unleashing a flurry of shots at a small group of mechs approaching me. Most of the metal on their torsos had been shredded to scrap, causing them to fall forwards and litter the floor with their remains. I ducked back at the first sign of returning fire, and advanced one pillar forwards, giving the mechs as little ground as possible, though that wouldn't unnerve them at all.

I glanced at Elise, who was out of cover, and advancing slowly to the next support beam up, shooting as she went. Her eyes an face were completely emotionless; if it weren't for appearance, I would have mistook her for a mech. I ignored her for the time being and focused on the enemies in front of me; besides, Elise looked like she could handle herself. She didn't even seem distracted by the returning fire, like she was sleepwalking...

"These odds are so unfair." I joked, calling over to Elise; "Maybe we should let them advance before smashing them down again."

"I'd rather not slip up." Elise shouted back. I could just barely hear her laugh.

I grinned and turned the corner again, dropping onto one knee so that I was crouching, and aimed for the mechs kneecaps. Most of my shots had hit, separating the mechs from their legs; the stray shots had hit the mechs further up, but barely scratched them. I looked at Elise again, who was advancing two more pillars further, breaking into a light jog just before she made contact with one of those suits of armor.

The suit had driven straight into her, knocking her back into a pillar a few meters back. I twisted my body around to face the suit and aimed at the four wheels that supported it, depleting all the ammunition in both my guns; though I had stopped the suit from moving, giving Elise a chance to get up and shred it to pieces with her rifle. Now there were only two dozen mechs left; this felt too easy.

"I'll take the front line." Elise called over to me. I could barely hear her over the gunfire. "You take the back row. My rifle can't reach that far with good enough accuracy."

That was actually the first time I had heard Elise state a disadvantage about her rifle; sure, it was strong, didn't eat away at ammunition and had a good build; but it didn't have the range. I felt a sudden feeling of shock more than surprise; I had been relying on her and her rifle quite a bit; it was hard to think that it wasn't all that great that I had believed it to be. Perhaps I was just overreacting.

I ignored my feelings for the time-being and watched as Elise twisted out of cover, shredding everything in front of her apart. The group of mechs had become clouds of sparks and scraps of metal being torn off. Finally, Elise let go of the trigger, and we both watched the front line fall down to the ground in a scrap heap. I took this opportunity and twisted out from the pillar and reloaded, cocking the pistols and firing them with almost perfect accuracy at the six remaining mechs.

Five had fallen to the ground, whilst one was left standing; its right arm was torn off, and it was slowly losing balance. I took this moment to run up over all the scrap metal and force my left pistol into the mechs skull, pulling the trigger and sending it to the ground. I let out a loud sigh and waved Elise over, signaling that it was all clear.

"That's quite a mess we've made." Elise called over to me, stepping carefully over the remains and placing her rifle back in the case. "Now we should be able to find out where The Director went from Falsetto."

"I just hope we know how." I said doubtfully. There were too many bookcases with too many shelves, containing too may logs to count. Destroying the mechs was the easy part; finding the right log was the hard part.

We walked down a gap that separated two bookcases, and started searching; with me looking at the left side, and Elise looking at the right side. The bookcase was built long-ways rather than tall-ways, meaning we had to walk for well over a hundred meters before I finally spoke up.

"This is ridiculous." I said, stopping dead and crossing my arms. "How would any regular person want to find something amongst all these records?"

"Maybe use an Index?" Elise suggested, stopping to face me. I sighed and nodded; it was a rhetorical question, though it was good to see that Elise knew what to look for.

We both gave up looking for the actual record, but instead searched for a computer or terminal of some kind. Unfortunately, the only thing closest to a terminal that we could see was right at the other end of the room. We both noticed the faint blue light, and made a short sprint towards it. My body felt like it was on fire; even Seekers don't go through this much running or exercise during the day, and carrying all this equipment just made it worse.

Elise had to support me during the last stretch over to the terminal that was planted into the wall. Elise let go of me as I walked up to the terminal, inspecting it from top to bottom; it looked just like a computer screen, but with no buttons, no switches, not even a keyboard. I ran my fingers across the screen lightly, and jumped back as the screen started to lighten up and generate an image.

I started to relax and approach the screen again, looking at what looked like a greetings sign. I was about to turn to Elise and ask her what she could do with the terminal, but she was already occupied. She pulled out a small black cube from her cloak and cracked it open with a small screwdriver, revealing a red marble inside that generated a light grey screen. I knew what she was about to do.

"I almost forgot about that." I said, indicating Epitaph in Elise's right hand; "Do you think it can find the records, then?"

"It's worth a shot." Elise muttered back to me, turning back to Epitaph. "Epitaph, can you get into this terminal and track down The Director?"

"Of course." Epitaph answered. Elise put the cube down on top of the screen and stood back, waiting for the right log to come up.

I began to hear a few metal footsteps behind us, causing me to jerk around and pull out both pistols. Elise turned to me and pulled her rifle out of her case again, pointing it down the gap that separated the two bookshelves. I strode down the gap to meet the enemy head on.

"We need to keep Epitaph covered." Elise called to me, staying where she was. "Keep the mechs occupied; I'll remain here in case the worst comes to the worst."

I understood what she meant; though I couldn't really imagine myself dying. I still had so much to do; besides finding this money, I hadn't seen enough of the world to be satisfied. My recent travels with Elise had created that desire inside me; the desire to go places, experience different smells, sights, tastes. Maybe I was just making a big deal out of this to give me a solid reason to live.

Around three mechs had twisted out of cover to meet me, and instantly fired everything they had in my direction, but being careful as to not damage the Archives. The few shots that hit me didn't have much impact due to my upgraded jumpsuit, but they still managed to knock me back a few yards. Luckily, I had already released a few shots in their direction, taking the head off of one, and tearing apart the legs of another; the one that was left standing had been beaten across the head with the butt of my pistol, cracking the metal skull.

Now I was out in the open, and surrounded by the metal pillars again; and behind those, more mechs. I was surprised we didn't notice them before. They must have been there for quite a while, because I noticed that all the scrap metal we left behind was all recovered. The mechs didn't shoot, and neither did I; we all just stood there, facing each other and keeping our guns held up. It was a tense silence. I looked around for something to use as cover, but could only see a metal pillar to my right that was at least five meters away from me. I decided to take that risk.

I dove to my right just before the mechs had begun shooting; luckily, I had tucked into the pillar and was fully shielded from them. I twisted out for a few seconds and unleashed a few stray shots, barely managing to take down three mechs out of the two-dozen that were firing on me. I twisted back in and groaned at the situation.

I started to lose patience about a minute into the firefight, and twisted out again, this time taking a few shots to the chest, but returning even more bullets that had taken down two more of the metal skeletons. I ducked back into cover and began advancing forwards and out of the hotspot. It was bad enough to be under fire from one mech; but a whole two-dozen was just taking the piss. On my way, I kept releasing a few focused shots, taking down another three mechs, leaving eight more for the count.

Before I could begin to fire again, I saw Elise run forwards in the corner of my eye, unleashing a good number of shots that tore the rest of the mechs apart.

"Epitaph is all done." Elise shouted over to me, still shooting at the remaining mechs. "We'll be heading north-west from the city. That was where The Director was headed."

"It's a good thing." I shouted back, hiding behind cover; "I was beginning to get bored of fighting these things."

"That's what I wanted to tell you." Elise said at normal volume. All the mechs were reduced to scrap, and Elise had stopped shooting. "The Knights have that area under control. I'm guessing they're looking for the same thing we are."

"Just great." I growled sarcastically, looking down in frustration. "Well, we'll cross that bridge once we get to it."

"Well that bridge will come along pretty soon." Elise sighed, placing her rifle back in the case. "It's only about three hours away from the city at The Cradle's pace."

"Let's just focus on getting out of here." I groaned, holstering both pistols and following Elise up to a small tunnel planted into the wall. "I'm guessing that's a service tunnel, right?"

"You guessed it." Elise said lightly, crouching slightly to fit into the tunnel. "It's much safer than taking the ground-level route."

I was about to laugh, but forcibly stopped myself. I had never seen Elise take a stealthy route; she seemed like the kind of reckless person who was really hard to kill; the best kind of person that I had met in a long time.

I crouched down and followed Elise through the service tunnel. Now we had an idea of where we were going next.

And what we were going to meet once we arrived...