Chapter 56 – Anyone There?

I crouched down just in front of the door, and lightly brushed my hand across fresh mud streaks leading toward the arcade. The footprints were kinda small, like a group of kids had recently come through here. Probably those delinquents Jason mentioned. I could still faintly make out a fresh scent through the mud and heavy rain.

Lightning flashed, and thunder rippled across the sky. One of my ears twitched up alertly, while the other sat cocked off to the side. “Looks like a bunch of kids came through here recently.”

“This looks freshly broken, too.” Quinn poked at where a glass door had once blocked the way into the arcade. The glass had been shattered, leaving behind a sign that swayed in the wind. “And not ominous at all.”

RESTRICTED AREA

HARBOR AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY

SITE UNDER ISOLATION PROTOCOL

DO NOT ENTER

“Yep, not creepy.” The sign looked like it’d been put up at the same time the camera was. So this place was a Harbor site after all? Or someone just plastered a Harbor sign onto it to scare people off. “We going in?”

“A Guardian and Canary are probably authorized, right?” She shook her head, and pointed down at the tracks. “Those are only one way, and I don’t hear any voices inside. Do you?”

“No.” I could see what she was getting at. If someone was in there, we should probably be responsible and get them out. It’s just… well, I didn’t really want to go in there. The warnings were frankly quite clear. “Let me check the Harbor database first.”

”Ugh, fine.” Quinn sighed, and leaned against the wall next to the broken glass. “You need my credentials again?”

”I got it.” I had it all memorized anyway. Instead of using her stuff, though, I turned away and pulled out the Visitor’s Pass instead.

“Operator, why are you using the Visitor’s Pass?” Vigil’s mechanical voice chimed in my ears. I stuffed him into my jacket pocket while I was busy.

I glanced back at Quinn, who was busy making a dinosaur out of water, and whispered back to him, “if this is a black site, there’s a chance she doesn’t have the permissions to access its records.”

”Ah, I understand,” he said. “Would it not be easier for me to hack the database?”

“Can you do that without alerting Horizon?” I keyed in the temporary username and password that the Visitor’s Pass gave me. Honestly, no idea how that worked. Were there already accounts in the database it was using? Or was it somehow warping reality to create ones on its own?

”This unit gives it an 87% chance of going undetected.” My tail flicked to the side. “Remotely accessing the database greatly reduces the odds over direct access, though.”

“Then I’ll stick with this for now.” Horizon got onto me the last time I used stolen credentials to check up on something. I’d rather not have him as an enemy considering the AI overlord definitely knew I was with Hades. Honestly, it was a surprise I wasn’t busted yet.

“This unit will spoof the connection.” Vigil was actually helpful for once outside of advice. The Titan core really was an all-purpose survival tool, huh… why did the Grail Knight even leave him behind in the first place?

With him taking care of that, I pulled open the database. Nothing came up when I searched for the amusement park. Then was this not a Harbor operation? Whose was it, then? “There’s nothing.”

”Weird. Then let’s go in and check it out. Might be some other organization hiding something here.” Quinn frowned, and her water dino dissolved into a blob that dropped into the mud. “Might be a black site, though.”

I slid my phone back into my pocket, and hesitantly followed her into the arcade. Glass crunched underfoot as we entered the place, and rain pattered down through the broken doors. “If this is a black site, we should probably zone off this entire building before using the amusement park.”

”I’ll get the construction guys to do it when I make this place suitable for a hunting ground.” Quinn shrugged. “Need to set up a radiant perimeter anyway.”

“Mhmm.” Otherwise the Calamity might slip out. My eyes adjusted to the darkness of the room. All around us sat rows and rows of old arcade machines that stretched into the building. Most of them were smashed like someone really didn’t want them to be operational again.

My nose stung from the scent of relatively fresh spray paint. A can of the stuff was dropped next to an old shoot-em up game marked with Mystery Society Was Here. “Someone’s definitely been here recently.”

”What gave that away?” Quinn pointed toward where mud had tracked into the arcade. It led to a light near the back corner of the place. The light pushed back the desolate darkness that swallowed most of the arcade. “Something tells me we should look over there.”

”No shit, Quinn.” I rolled my eyes. She wasn’t the only one that could be a sarcastic asshole. “Hello? Anyone there?!”

“This is Guardian Tidebreak! I know you’re here! Announce yourself!” Her voice echoed through the arcade. There was no reply, or even the sound of movement. “Final warning! You’re not in trouble yet, but you will be!”

The arcade sat in total silence outside of water dripping into the building somewhere deeper inside. My tail twitched in annoyance. “So much for approaching this place stealthily.”

”Please. If anyone was watching, they probably knew the moment we arrived out front.” Quinn shook her head and moved back to the light. I followed her to find a door that looked like it was added onto the arcade sometime in the last decade. A set of cleanroom suits sat off to the side like discarded trash.

My nose twitched as I took a breath. The antiseptic scent was definitely coming through there. Only—there was just one issue. The door was heavily, heavily fortified with security defenses. Although it was a bit outdated compared to current stuff, it was still to the point we wouldn’t be able to get through. Even brute forcing through it looked like it’d be difficult.

The security hardly mattered since the door was left open, though. Quinn approached a table to its side with an analog box monitor set up on it. An old ID scanner was plugged into the monitor. “Think this thing even still works?”

”One way to find out.” I pushed the monitor’s power button, and the monitor blinked to life. The logo of Harbor briefly popped up before fading into a login page.

”So this is a Harbor operation? Or… was?” Quinn tilted her head to the side. “Why’d they have to make this thing so confusing?”

”Black sites always are.” They operated on the basis that no one needed to know, anyway. It wouldn’t be all that surprising if they expunged all digital records, and the only paperwork on this place was physical documents in some abandoned filing cabinet.

I hesitated for a moment before swiping the Visitor’s Pass through the ID scanner. The monitor blinked, and then opened up into a barebones file system. Most of the files were marked out, though one sat near the top.

Exp-27G37Z - Silverport Back Arcade

“Well, that was a fancy trick. You holding out on me?” Quinn eyed me with a smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes. Her eyebrows narrowed ever so slightly in suspicion.

”Aha… just an old trick I learned.” I stuffed the Visitor’s Pass into my pocket and let it fade away. I wrapped my tail around my calf so it couldn’t give me away for once. “Only works on old systems like this.”

”You can tell me, Reyna. Not like I’d turn on you by this point.” The suspicion faded into an earnest expression that made my ears lower and tail coil tighter. “Please trust me?”

”Um…” Do I tell her? The Visitor’s Pass was such a small thing. It wouldn’t hurt me to let her know about it. I highly, highly doubted she’d try to steal it or anything. She’d probably just be happy that I had something to help protect myself with.

My fingers tightened, and I looked away from her uncomfortably. Possessing an unrecorded anomaly was highly illegal. It put me on par with being a Psyker, or becoming a Reaver. She knew I did illegal shit in the past, but admitting that I was still doing that kind of stuff was a different matter.

“Can we… can we talk about it later? When we’re not in the middle of something?” I asked softly. I should tell her. Maybe it’d ease up that heavy gaze she’d been shooting at me recently if she knew some more of my secrets. “It’s a long story.”

“After this.” She backed off with a nod, though I had a feeling she’d bring it up again as soon as this was over. It was fine, though. It was more than enough time to think up a good lie of where I got it from.

“I’ve seen this format before.” I quickly changed the subject, and clicked on the file. “Harbor uses it for their exploration targets. There’s probably an anomaly of some kind through there, or there was one at some point.”

I skimmed through the page, which was full of warnings of all sorts. Any information that looked like it’d be nice to know was expunged and marked out with heavy black lines that I couldn’t read through.

“Then we probably shouldn’t go back there, huh?” Quinn’s eyes snapped down to the open document. At the very top of the page, it said in big bold letters Under Harbor authority, no trespassing of any kind. Stay out and forget you saw this place. Only authorized personnel may continue. “We’re kinda authorized, right?”

“More importantly, whoever came through here went in there.” I jerked my thumb to the open door. All the security in the world didn’t matter if they were able to bypass it just like that.

“Maybe… Or maybe they went out a back way and they’re already long gone?” She asked with a false sense of hope.

“Right, because things are always that easy.” I flicked through the rest of the document, but it was hard to get much of anything out of it through all the censored bits.

“Fuck. If someone’s in there messing with a sealed anomaly, we need to get them out.” Quinn sighed, and shook her head. “At least the document said this place is relatively safe.”

”Relative to what?” A natural disaster? Tier-5 Calamity? A passing dog whizzing on a street pole? It was just a bad idea to mess with things we didn’t understand.

“Operator, the Blackwater Anomalous Catalog has been updated. This unit thought it would be smart to show you.” Vigil popped the thing up into my HUD.

| Blackwater Bounty:

Assess EXP-27G37Z - Silverport Back Arcade

- Reward: 15 Vitae |

’Course Blackwater would be interested in this kind of thing. I wasn’t quite sure how they knew I was here, but Blackwater Anomalous wasn’t exactly synonymous with me understanding how it worked.

“Let’s go in.” Quinn sighed, and pushed open the unlocked door the rest of the way. The room beyond was a clinical white space filled with monitors and old machinery. The lights were on even though the place had long since been abandoned. Dozens of scanners were set up around a door that looked like any other door in the arcade.

“They weren’t messing around with the security, huh?” Quinn poked at a sentry turret pointed at the arcade doors. It was one of three watching over the place.

”Probably for good reason,” I muttered and shuffled over to the computer. The same trick got me in. Just like with the last one, most records were expunged. There were just two that were left accessible.

-

Log #467

Experiment: Turn in 1,000,000 tickets following Dr. ————‘s idea.

Result: Isolation Protocols over 27G37Z black site. All experiments to be terminated immediately. Continuation at risk of court martial.

-

The other was a short guide to interacting with the Silverport Back Arcade safely. I glanced through it while Quinn walked around and poked at stuff. Apparently, through that door was an anomalous arcade. The tickets of which could be spent to retrieve all sorts of stuff. Most of the stuff the researchers pulled out of there were expunged, so I wasn’t quite sure what kind of things we were looking at.

“Look at this.” Quinn held up a backpack that was totally out of place. It looked like a teenage girl’s, and was packed full of snacks and stuff. A Guardian Beacon charm hung from its side. “What are the chances our trespassers are adventurous kids with too much brawn and not enough brain?”

“Unfortunately high.” My tail stilled behind me. If these really were kids, then we really needed to get them out before they messed with something they didn’t understand. Pyre, please let them be safe.

Quinn pulled a school ID out of one of the pockets, and passed it to me. It was for thirteen-year-old Lizzie Treckton. More pressingly, the bag being full of snacks suggested that this girl preplanned coming here in advance. ”How the hell did she get past the security?”

“Maybe she found an ID badge lying around?” Wouldn’t be the first time Harbor was sloppy about something.

Quinn set the backpack down with a heavy expression. The halo above her head throbbed like a distressed heartbeat. “I’ll call it in.”

“Yep.” I approached the sealed door into the Back Arcade, and my nose twitched. There was something there just underneath the antiseptic that I couldn’t quite make out.

“This is Guardian Tidebreak. We have a civilian incursion at site EXP-27G37Z under isolation protocols.” Quinn’s voice shifted to her work one as she leaned against a console. “Potentially multiple minors with status unknown.”

My ears twitched as I barely picked up the sound on the other side of the line. “I have no records of a site under that designation. You sure it's one of ours?”

”I’m staring at a bunch of old Harbor equipment at the moment, so probably.” Quinn sighed. “How long till you can get a containment or retrieval team here?”

“Five hours.”

”The hell?” Quinn’s voice carried a mystified note.

”I’m sorry, Guardian. The riots in the western districts have most of our assets pulled away.” The man sighed heavily. “I’ll try to bump its priority.”

”We’re looking at at least one thirteen-year-old girl lost in an anomaly. We definitely don’t have five hours.” Quinn bit at her lip, and looked up to me with a question in her eyes. I sharply nodded my head. “We’re going in for retrieval ourselves.”

”Guardian—“

”If you don’t hear back from me in the next four hours, send more than just a containment team.” Quinn cut the man off. “Clear?”

”… I understand, Guardian. Good luck.”

Quinn dropped her arms, and stared blankly at the door. “You sure you’re good to go in and get them?”

”’Course.” Honestly, I was already planning on it instead of waiting for a containment team to arrive. This was technically their job since Guardians were more so supposed to respond to Calamities, but time was ticking.

I pulled open the interaction guide logged on the computer for her. “Come read this.”

Most of it was straightforward stuff. Don’t break the machinery, treat the arcade with respect, have fun, don’t try to cheat, and above all be careful when exchanging tickets. There was also a list of sub-anomalies that were in the place that we’d have to take care when dealing with. Unfortunately, most of their records were expunged as well.

There were two things in there that made me worried though. A bolded instruction simply said to hide under or in an arcade game when the lights went out. The fur along my tail bristled when I read that. The other said that the door would reappear upon spending a ticket. Something gave me the feeling this wouldn’t be the walk in the park that I hoped it’d be.

”Hopefully we’ll find them and get out quickly.” Quinn sighed and closed out the document. “What do you think the odds are that the doorway disappears once we get in there?”

”I’ll be able to find it.” Seek would once again prove useful in that case. I hesitated for a moment, and then pulled out my service side arm. I didn’t have any of my other equipment on me. “Shall we?”

“I’ll take point.” Quinn moved in front of me and slowly pushed open the door to reveal a brand new looking arcade. Lights flashed brightly, and arcade machines pulsed with life. It was hazy, though, like it was disconnected from this side of the door.

Without any further delays, she entered the place first. My ears were instantly overwhelmed with the clamour of arcade games as we slipped inside. The moment we entered, I finally placed that scent. It was fear.