Mira and I walked aimlessly down the halls for a while. Honestly, I had no idea where I was going. The blueprint I had for this place from the city archives was entirely different from what was actually going on here. It was supposed to be an office building, and yet we were just aimlessly walking in circles.
I pulled Mira into a broom closet just as a group of patrolling ASCorp corporate guards turned the corner ahead of us. I watched the bright dots on the minimap walk down the hall. Honestly, having a runner ping every guard made this waytoo easy.
Once they were far enough away, I popped open the door and stepped back out. “You said this was ASCorp, Saint?”
”Looks like it. So kind of storage facility, I think.” The reporter replied across the Packheart Rings. “I’ll try to find you a blueprint.”
“Thanks.” It seed he picked up on that particular ability of mine even without telling him anything about my capabilities. My first tightened. I needed to be more wary of the guy—or was that just my paranoia talking? He’d proven himself trustworthy so far, hadn’t he?
”Any idea where we’re going?” Mira glanced over her shoulder back the way we ca from. “I don’t like sticking around here.”
I eyed the tracker that should lead us to Kaynis’s location. The cyborg werewolf was here sowhere. Finding him in this maze of a building would be quite annoying, though. “That way, I guess.”
We wandered the halls for a ti, trying to find a path forward. Luna kept us scrubbed from caras and sensors, so as long as we avoided the actual people on patrol, we were ghosts. We had a few close calls thanks to Mira’s lack of stealth skills, but nothing that I couldn’t handle.
”Here.” Saint uploaded a schematic into my HUD. I stared at it for a mont and then slowly nodded my head. Yeah, we weren’t finding our way through this by ourselves. The entire outer facility was like a dummy maze to protect the interior.
With the map in mind, we cut through several doors and bypassed security. Between my entry skills and Luna being able to open all sorts of electric locks, there wasn’t much that could stand in our way. Even the dozens of mounted turrets we stumbled across complete ignored us.
Eventually, we stumbled across a massive loading bay door leading further into the facility. “Luna, can you pop this?”
”Uh- y-yeah.” Almost imdiately, the chanisms of the loading door churned to life. Bright yellow lights flashed on top of the door for only a second before the runner shut them off. “Go quick. A-another patrol coming up.”
I dragged Mira to the door. We didn’t wait for the doors to open all the way before sliding underneath them. As soon as we were through, the massive doors dropped down behind us.
“Damn.” I looked out ahead of us. An absolutely cavernous facility opened up ahead of us. Shelves stacked to the roof were covered in boxes of various shapes and sizes. Far above, lights flickered in long, slow pulses that barely cut through the gloom of the place.
The blueprint Saint gave indicated this was a stacking facility too. If there were several of these cavernous warehouses built on top of each other, there must be millions of not billions of rayn in supplies and products kept here. A facility like this—why the hell would they keep it in the heights of all places?
“Is this Aythryn City’s entire supply of ASCorp products?” Mira whispered next to . In the quiet warehouse, even just her whisper seed to echo off the walls.
“Must be. Why—no, how is this here? Being in the heights must cause all sorts of logistical nightmares.” Saint muttered.
”Look at the prints.” I ntally thought through them once more. “They have a series of tunnels set up underneath the place.”
Saint went silent for several monts while he checked out what I was seeing. Eventually, he got was I was pointing at. “You think they have a private, subterranean road system set up? They could just skip transporting through the heights outright.”
”Maybe.” What I had of the underground tunnels looked like a subway or private road system. It would take care of many of the logistical issues. And if they didn’t have to worry about transporting through the Scath Heights, then this really wasn’t the worst place for such a building. Most people wouldn’t dare to co here in the first place.
Unfortunately, the blueprint he got cut off past a certain point. Everything was just guess work unless we went down there to verify our suspicions about the private road system. It also wasn’t in my knowledge of the Underground, so that was a little unsettling. I couldn’t even imagine how much rayn they sunk into this place to get it up and running.
“Is he sowhere in here?” Mira peered out into the gloom of the warehouse. “Why’d he co here of all places?”
I checked the blueprint once more and lined it up with where the transponder pinged from. “He’s down in the tunnels. Maybe to escape the heights? Luna, did you know of this?”
”N-no… but m-my brother has a-always had a nose for this k-kind of thing.” The runner pinged a service lift at the edge of the facility. “C-check this out.”
The lift she pinged dropped directly into the sub-level tunnels. There were several, far larger lifts going up to the upper levels, but this one looked like it could take us down without drawing much attention.
“G-guards are everywhere, so stay low.” The runner pinged dozens of guards on patrol throughout the facility. They moved with the precision of a machine, though with all of them pinged, I saw more than enough gaps to exploit. “I’ll take care of scanners.”
”Chek.” I slunk forward into the warehouse, careful to keep Mira as far away from the guards as I possibly could. Floodlights swept the maze-like corridors between stacked cargo, each one making freeze up like we were spotted.
At the corners of every cargo stack, motion scanners rotated slowly on tripod mounts. They swept the aisles in rhyming arcs that we thankfully didn’t have to worry about with Luna’s intervention. Getting through here undetected would’ve been a pain otherwise.
Just before I could step out into another passage, Mira silently grabbed my arm and pointed upward. I followed her gaze up to a sniper nest perched on a suspended catwalk. Luna missed him, which made suddenly much more paranoid that we’d run into soone else unhinged.
The man hadn’t seen us yet, but if we continued straight to the lift, it was only a matter of ti. He was too alert to ignore, and too risky to attempt a silent takedown with the level of security they had set up here.
I motioned to Mira. Thankfully, she picked up on my gestures and mutely nodded her head. We detoured left, working our way in a large arc to avoid the sniper nest. Nests, I should say. There wasn’t just one set up in the rafters.
This place was probably one of the heaviest guarded facilities I’d ever been in. It wasn’t hard to see why. If this really was ASCorp’s main distribution warehouse, then just one bomb set off in just the right place could cripple the corp’s reach into Aythryn City. And there were more than enough corps out there willing to do anything to overco their competitors.
We passed by a set of heavy boxes stained with sothing dark. Mira raised a brow. “Raw at?”
”Or bodies.” I lifted a finger to my mask and pulled her behind a set of crates. I pressed her back against the wall, staying absolutely still. Illusive covered in shadows. While it didn’t cover her up, with standing in front of her, it had a similar effect.
A set of guards moved slowly down the aisle, talking in low tones. “…there was a breach on the tower’s periter.”
”Ugh- why are we stuck here then? I want to go out and fight the muties, not patrol a dusty warehouse that’s going to give night blindness.” The other guard complained.
”If you want to complain, feel free.” His companion sighed. “It’s way beyond our pay grade, though.”
”No kidding…” They moved on, leaving and Mira stuffed behind a crate.
I let out a slow breath and pushed away from my mikata. “You could use a bath.”
”That’s rich coming from you.” Mira huffed and shook her head. “You reek of burnt at.”
“So do you.” The run in with Cornucopia hadn’t exactly been a clean encounter. I stepped back out into the aisle. “C’mon, it's this way.”
We slipped down the aisles toward the service lift. Eventually, we found a small standalone room buried under shelves and broken machinery. Bright blue paint covered the area. A maintenance sign hung half unscrewed from the side of the room.
The door was guarded by a dozen corporate guards in heavier armor. Their helt visors reflected a dull red glow from a nearby status panel. From the way they shifted from floor to foot, they were alert and restless. The kind that wouldn’t fall for simple distractions. It was unfortunate considering my bag of tricks.
Even getting close to the door would be impossible with the number of guards set up there. If it was just , I might be able to get by with a lot of luck. With Mira here too, though, that complicated things. I took a step back, leading Mira away till we were out of earshot. “How are we looking?”
“They’re looking for the source of the breach, but don’t where you’re at yet.” Saint popped up a scene from outside the tower where we blew through. Several dozen corporate guards had set up a defensive position around the hole in the wall. “Watch yourselves.”
”P-protocol call ins every f-five minutes.” Luna gave sothing to work with. “Patrols are increasing to groups of four. T-they’re tightening security.”
Nova. Security wasn’t too much of an issue now, but if we were spotted even once, we’d quickly get sward. How were we going to do this? ”Can you spoof the calls?”
”M-maybe once. T-they have codewords. Protocol dictates they’re on paper only, s-so I can’t get access.” Luna’s voice grew weaker near the end.
The paper copies were probably to prevent runners from doing the exact thing I wanted to do. Not to ntion silently taking out a dozen heavily ard guards with just the two of us would be almost impossible. There were too many variables.
“Is there a less guarded lift sowhere else?” Although I asked, I already knew the answer. Other lifts were in more centralized areas, so they’d be more guarded by the sheer number of patrols.
Still, Luna gave an answer. “N-not that I can see. S-snipers have better angles on the o-other ones.”
I looked through my list of Perks and thought through my equipnt, reaching for anything that might help. Could I do sothing from my canteen? Maybe the haze fluid could help… but one of them would probably notice sothing.
The jade dagger was always an option. It would only affect one of them, but maybe I could hit the power systems for the building? Make the entire place go dark? No—they’d probably just stay camped out regardless of distractions.
My brain whirled into overload, enough so that I felt my Kinetic charge levels rapidly spike. I tapped my foot erraticly, discharging a jolt of electricity into the ground with a light glow.
“Shiro.” Mira tapped on the shoulder to draw from my racing thoughts. “Give one of your crow things.”
I summoned out one of the spectral flock and passed it to her. “Why?”
“Just trust , alright? I’ll call you when I’m ready.” Mira’s eyes pulled into a smile and she patted my shoulder. Then, without even bothering to explain her plan, she walked off toward the maintenance room.
I took over one of my Dragonflies and carefully followed behind her, heart slamming in my throat. I trusted her though, so I kept from acting on my instincts to run out and stop her from potentially exposing us. If the worst ca to pass… I had so other options I could go for. I’d rather not reach for them if I could help it though.
Mira arrived back at the maintenance area, though rerouted around toward the back of it. Why—
Oh… I got it now. I took a breath and watched her press up against the back wall. One mont she was there, the next she simply phased through the back of the building like it was all just an illusion. Her Shift ExoCore easily let her pass through the wall.
”See? That wasn’t so hard.” Mira’s voice faintly ca across the Packheart Ring. “C’mon, Shiro.”
I pulled on the connection to my spectral crow. The world distorted around for a brief second, and then I teleported inside of the maintenance room.
Mira grabbed my arm, stabilizing as my balance returned. The maintenance room was half workshop, half boiler room. The ground was a tal grate, with pipes and steam drifting all around from below. At the far end, buried behind heavy machines, sat our prize.
The maintenance lift itself was barely big enough for a cargo loader, and looked like it might fall apart at any mont. It was rusty and ancient looking, though still functional from what I could tell. “Looks operational.”
”Are you sure we even want to try this?” Mira held back a step. “Your luck with elevators… this thing will collapse as soon as we step on.”
“It’ll be fine… right?” I waved a hand, though I went ahead and scanned the entire thing several tis with Technical Expertise.
While I was doing that, Mira crouched and stared through the tal grating of the lift. “Sothing moved down there.”
”Guards?” I looked back, but I couldn’t see anything.
”I-I’m not picking anything up from down there.” Luna hesitantly called out. “I-it should be clear of guards.”
My expression hardened slightly. “Muties, then?”
”Could be.” Mira shifted and stood back up. “Could’ve been nothing… guns up, just in case.”
I lifted my rifle and stepped onto the lift beside her. “Luna, send us down.”
”Y-yeah.” After a beat, the console controlling the lift flashed with a half moon. The lift shuddered and the gears ground softly. Although it looked like a rusty hunk of tal, the maintenance crew obviously kept the thing well oiled.
I shared one last look with Mira as we sunk down into the darkness below.
— — —
AN: Happy New Year!
If you’ve been enjoying Outrun throughout 2025, would you do a favor and think about leaving a review? I don’t usually ask for them, but they really do help out quite a bit. Numbers go up makes feel good, and it lets know what you guys think of the story so far.
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