Conflicting Objectives X

It took John and Martin about one hour to get the first drone back online.

- It did take us much longer than I thought - said Johnson as he started stretching after long time in inconvenient position - Looking at the state of the parts we have, I feel the second one's going to be even worse. Are you still planning to work on the next one?

Marlow actually had doubts of his own. However, relying on only a single drone, while knowing how easy was to get any advanced tech broken in this place, was simply way too risky.

- We cannot waste time, so you continue working on the next one, and I will take this one for a spin - he told Johnson, remotely connecting to the drone with his PEC.

Initially, he wanted to put it to use within the corridor, complying with Alina's request, but - right now - John started having second thoughts. After all, if he took the drone there, it was quite likely they will not have one to investigate more important part of the underground. He had to decide whether he should take the risk, and send the drone back to the corridor, or prioritize checking the area in front of them.

It took him a moment to decide, but ultimately - he confronted Alina, telling her the current room takes priority. To say she was disappointed would have been like saying nothing - obviously, checking any traces related to Jackie were a priority, so skipping several mechanisms was a big deal, though - to John's opinion - they could find even more clues further on their way, and previous mechanisms could have been a waste of time either way.

Since the area now had a different layout than what Marlow originally saw during the visit before, with several walls standing in spots where there was only an open space before, the spacious room looked like some type of a maze. Having no spots between the walls and the ceiling, it was impossible to check from above so the only option left was simply walking through the corridors that were created with walls appearing.

Obviously, since the room looked completely different than before, and John personally experienced walls appearing, there was for sure some kind of system allowing to adjust the layout of the area, similarly to what they previously found above the ground, making it possible for them to change the entry route. However, he had no means of knowing where to look exactly, therefore he could not take any shortcuts.

Fortunately, Marlow had access to all of the data from the last time he visited this place, including the positions of the veins that were seemingly the energy source for the facility to function, and also the source of magnetic activity that affected their drones. It might have been useless in a narrow corridor, which was almost entirely above such a vein, but the case was completely different in a bigger area like the one they finally reached. Additionally, with locations of specific devices, he could potentially use them to navigate the drone much easier - given the tremors caused by walls appearing did not break these.

Using his PEC, John synced with the drone's sensors, and loaded his own data into its memory to be used for drawing a new map of the area by adding the positions of walls in real time, and avoid the areas that would be most problematic for the drone's systems. With that, this spider-shaped bot was ready to walk into the maze created by the number of thick walls.

While he had experience with remotely controlling such spider drones, he still felt a bit motion sick due to some time passing since he last synced with the drone's optics that way. Because of that, Marlow was moving the drone slowly in order for his brain to re-adjust to this specific sensation.

A few minutes passed before he started feeling fully at ease and could start moving the bot at much faster pace. Even with that though, the route was not easy to navigate through and he was making slow, but steady progress towards the spot where they found Jackie's body, which was one of the targets they had for the current mission, hopefully being the area allowing to control some of the facility's systems.

- So, how's it going? - the voice reached him so suddenly that he almost fainted.

Without being able to look at the person face, since it required disconnecting from the drone, he guessed it was Alina.

- I still have some distance to cover before reaching the spot where we found Jackie - John replied, while still moving the bot towards the target, using his original footage as reference - So far, there were no problems on the route, but I'm not even halfway through yet. How about your part?

The woman shrugged before replying:

- We've already found several objects, but not all of them could be taken away as they seem to be integrated with this room. We actually considered removing them forcefully, but Rashid disagreed and told us to let them be for now. He stayed there as he found some plants and living beings to catalogue. The rest moved to a different spot already, while I came here to check on you since Martin mentioned you went ahead on your own.

- I'm fine if you meant you guys were worried about me going here without any support - Marlow said that, though he expected miss Boskovitch used the opportunity she had to look into what is happening in terms of investigating Jackie's death - You can send one of military guys my way now, since you are saying that you have one of the sections covered, possibly Andy. This should keep you guys at ease as he can stand guard.

Alina did not say anything for a moment, yet John could feel she was still standing there.

- Don't worry, I will let you know once I reach the target. For now, focus on whatever can be done now and I can assure you, we will prioritize going through this maze once I confirm the route is secure.

The woman hesitated for a moment, but ultimately thanked him and walked away - he could cleary hear her footsteps sound disappearing within a short moment.

Several minutes later, once he was around one-fourth of the distance until reaching the destination with a drone, owing to the situation with Alina approaching without him noticing, this time he noticed someone walking towards him.

- Who's there this time? - he asked when the footsteps have gotten closer, but there was no answer - If it's nothing important, just leave me be.

Suddenly, his cyber hand moved on its own and hit something. Then, a loud scream and noise followed. Feeling the situation was suspicious, Marlow made a decision to cut the connection with the drone, even though it meant he could have trouble with re-enabling connection afterwards.

He needed a minute or two for his eyes to get re-adjusted to seeing on their own, and - in the meantime - most of his team appeared, alarmed by the noise and looking around.

- What happened, John? - Martin was the first one to approach him - We heard something like a scream and some kind of a loud bang. Are you alright here?

- It wasn't me who was screaming - John straightened up, looking at his left arm - My cyber seems to have reacted automatically, possibly some kind of self-security system of some kind. I did not see a person who approached, and I'm sure someone was nearby and that was most likely the person who screamed, being hit by my arm.

Everyone else looked at each other.

- It must have been quite an impact since that person is nowhere close to be found - Rashid commented - I guess it was strong enough to send someone flying, but before we proceed with search, I'd first check if we have everyone from the group. And don't look at me like that. It's obvious to check if anyone is missing to make sure it's none of us who did such a number on John.

This would have been the easiest scenario, letting them immediately find out possible culprit, but it turned out no one was missing, and nobody has bruises or anything suggesting being hit by a military-grade cyber arm.

- I say we search the area behind major to look for any potential traces - sarge Krawczak suggested - If hit with a strong impact, even wearing F-suit wouldn't leave a person unscathed.

- Given we are talking about a real person here - Martin pointed out before everyone went to check the area behind John's back.