//Report: Quinn, Jackson

//Rome.

//Inside an Axion factory.

//Designation: Capitoline Facility.

//Resume log.

The hallway smelled of oil and chemical cleaner. The acrid aroma burned my nose as we ran, boots squeaking against the steel floor. The interior hallway of the Capitoline Facility was cold and dimly lit, a hexagonal passageway lined with dark steel and only a few eerie orange lights for decoration. Beyond this hall was the factory floor—their goal.

Amani and I moved quickly and quietly, but I couldn't shake the feeling that we were being pursued. We knew almost nothing about the layout of the underground factory, were completely unarmed and had no disguises of any kind.

Despite this, I was grateful that the guards were busy dealing with the riots on the surface—if I listened closely, I could still hear the dull roar of the crowds on the surface far above.

The giant door hadn't been a problem—only the soldiers guarding it. At Darius's behest, we had selected an entrance on the opposite side of the city, as far away from the riots as possible. Compared to the heavily guarded main entrance, surveillance had been lax.

Passing through the unguarded door had been surprisingly easy—Darius's facial scan and fingerprints were registered in Axion's database, allowing him to open the door.

Fortunately, neither of the guards who'd arrived to greet their visitors at the entrance had expected the Director of Axion Industries to march up to them and demand their assistance. Official reports about the fight for Project Themis were unclear as to Blackwell's fate, so the ruse would hold, if temporarily.

With the guards distracted and the door already open, slipping past them had been easy. Once we reached the factory floor, we would be able to steal the components needed to repair the dropship.

"Where to, Darius?" I asked.

There was a painstaking pause before I received a response. Darius sounded cautious, subdued.

"Find a door labeled Sector Three," he informed us. "That's the assembly line. If you can't find the item you need laying around on the factory floor, you'll need to keep an eye out for a computer—any will do. They all have access to the factory's component database. If you can find that, we'll be able to use it to locate the part that your pilot needs."

I picked up the pace, marching briskly down the hall with Amani in tow. Both of us were on high alert, ready to deal with any guards that emerged from the adjacent doorways, but none came. We passed a door with white block lettering etched across its surface.

Sector One.

"Just passed Sector One," Amani breathed. A nervous smile spread across her face. "I think we're on the right track."

"Good," Blackwell responded. His voice was a whisper now. "Keep going."

We passed another door.

Sector Two.

"Darius," I inquired, feeling a surge of panic, "why are you whispering? Are you still outside with the guards?"

There was a painstakingly long silence.

"No. I'm inside the facility as well."

"You're where?" Amani hissed. "That's the opposite of a diversion!"

"I didn't want to! They forced me into an office and left me here," Darius responded. "If I'm right, it belongs to—" He gasped, and the comm beeped. "Cassius!" Darius cried, his voice at once rising dramatically. "So good to see you again, my friend. I hope my surprise visit hasn't hindered your riot control operation."

My blood ran cold.

"Darius," I warned, "I swear to God, don't you dare—"

Darius's comm beeped again before cutting out in a quick burst of static.

The hair on the back of my neck rose as a rush of panic surged through my body.

"I've got a bad feeling about this..." Amani muttered.

"I couldn't agree more," I breathed.

The fact didn't escape me that the man we'd been fighting only one day prior had just led us into an Axion base unarmed, and was now speaking with the base's administrator like an old friend.

Amani and I shared another worried look—we both wanted to leave now, to turn back and exit the way we'd come before Blackwell betrayed us—but neither of us moved to return to the surface.

My mind roiled with questions, but something made me believe that I was still safe. Darius could have turned us in at the entrance to the factory, yet had allowed us to enter undetected. The former director had been provided with plenty of opportunities to betray us up until now—if he was planning to turn us in, why wait?

Ahead of us, the now claustrophobic hallway widened, leading to a door. Orange lights illuminated stark white lettering.

Sector Three.

The doors hissed open automatically as I approached, and I found myself standing on a metal platform suspended five storeys above a grand warehouse. Stairs connecting to a latticework of catwalks ran in all directions.

The gargantuan factory was over a kilometre in length and width, far larger than even the Firmament's hangars. The factory floor was filled with lines of conveyors, complicated machinery and, most importantly, half-finished mechs.

But most importantly of all, the room was completely empty.

"Huh," I remarked. "I guess they're all on strike."

Amani whistled, long and low.

"That's a lot of mechs," she remarked.

She was right—I couldn't see the far wall of the hangar, so densely packed were the mechs. Titans, Erebus, Hyperions. and even the hunched frame of an Aegis occupied the far corner, its mottled green armor rent open. Erebus sat in groups of three on the factory floor, armor open and waiting for a command capsule. Some mechs looked closer to completion, only lacking weapons or paint, but others were a mess, in pieces or half-assembled.

The closest mech to us, a Titan, hung from a mechanical arm attached to the hangar roof. Dangling wires hung from its open midsection like the organs of a great beast, and, to my delight, a thick black wire ran out of its cockpit and down to a standing computer console on the factory floor below.

"Still got a bad feeling about this?" Amani chirped. We stared down at the computer terminal with excitement.

"It's lessening by the second," I grinned. There was no way I was leaving without the converter and one of Axion's tablet computers. Not only could we fix the dropship, but we'd been given the chance to steal some Axion intel in the process.

Two sets of footsteps echoed through the hangar as I followed Amani down the staircase toward the computer bank. We were both fully aware that time was not on our side. Who knew what Darius was telling Cassius at that moment?

I tapped my earpiece, switching comm channels.

"Okay, Luke," I hissed. "What are we looking for?"

"We need a nuclear power converter," Lucas informed me. "Dropships typically use larger ones, but a mech converter should do fine to get us to Horizon City in a pinch. Look for a silver box about the size of a suitcase. It should have ports for wiring on either end."

"Gotcha," I replied. I glanced around the hangar, but could see nothing like the object Lucas was describing. "This... might be harder than I thought."

I bit back a sigh. This entire operation was beginning to feel like a string of endless minor issues, all linked together.

I tapped my earpiece, switching channels again, then turned to Amani.

"Time for a scavenger hunt, I guess," she grinned.

We moved in opposite directions, scanning each row of conveyors, every cart and workstation, for a similar part to the one Lucas had described. Every footstep I took felt like a gunshot in the silent hangar, and I found myself increasingly on edge.

Was anyone watching us? Did Axion already know we were here?

My comms crackled, beeping twice, and I nearly had a heart attack. The sound of talking filled my ear.

"I really must insist," Cassius was saying, his voice only slightly muted by the signal. "It's not that often that I get to show off this facility to anyone of importance. I thought you'd like to see how we've progressed since your visit last year. Calming the riot can wait, they'll go away eventually."

I breathed a sigh of relief. Cassius wasn't talking to us, but to Darius, who had switched his comms headset back on.

"There's no need, Administrator," Darius replied. "I appreciate your enthusiasm, but I've seen all I need of Sector Three."

A few metres away, Amani let out a quiet gasp. Darius was warning us. Cassius Knight was on his way!

"Come on, Blackwell," Cassius continued, "it's no trouble, the factory floor is right outside my office! We're running diagnostics on the latest batch of Titans, so it's all quiet down there for the moment, you really aren't interrupting anything! Besides, I know you'll like the improvements we've made to that Erebus design of yours."

"Man," Amani whispered. "That guy really needs to get a life."

Thinking quickly, I abandoned my hunt for the part we needed and began desperately searching for a place to hide. The factory floor was large but empty; every breath I took suddenly sounded too loud.

"Jax," Amani hissed. "Over here!"

She gestured to a nearby loading cart where a railgun gun sat, waiting to be equipped. The battered metal cart was completely hollow, but loose wires attached to the railgun provided a hanging curtain of copper and rubber that we could both see through and hide behind.

I sprinted across the factory floor and slid behind the weapon, joining Amani just as a door opened on the sixth floor of the hanger, flooding the stairway with bright light. The angle was too steep for me to properly get a look at Cassius Knight, but two sets of boots began descending the stairs.

I couldn't see Cassius, but I could certainly hear him. The man's booming voice echoed through the hangar as he boasted about his mechs and the latest breakthroughs he'd made. Darius said nothing, calmly following him down to the factory floor.

As I peeked out through the tangle of wires, a tap on my shoulder made me turn toward Amani, who gestured furiously at something just beneath our hiding place.

I glanced down at the cart we were hidden behind, and stifled a laugh. Tucked beneath the railgun was a stack of silver boxes. Power converters.

Finally, Cassius seemed to take a breath, pausing to admire the armada of half-assembled mechs he called his own. I could hear the pride in his voice, but there was a tinge of manic desperation in there too. The mechs and his paychecks seemed to be all Cassius really had. Greed did that to a person, stole away anything that didn't help them acquire more. This flawed logic was what Axion preyed on, men and women that were smart, but not smart enough to recognize their job for the trap it really was.

"What you've done here is impressive, Administrator Knight," Darius remarked. "It truly is. However, I hope that you deal with the riot outside efficiently, because without employees this grand factory has no value to Axion."

"Actually," Cassius interrupted, "I've been meaning to ask you about that. Employees. I would have thought you would be far more concerned with Axion's other international divisions than with my own. After all, I'm still loyal."

Across the room, Darius tensed, a ripple of anxiety flashing across his face, but he quickly hid it behind a smile.

"What do you mean?" he pressed.

Cassius took a step forward, and for the first time since the riots outside I could see his face clearly. A confused frown played across the man's lips, and a genuine concern filled his expression.

"Administrators Mikhailov and Olsson have both seceded from the company," Cassius declared. "They've each stolen a slice of the international assets and have locked down the bases they command. Each is claiming to be the Director of their own independent military corporations."

Darius' pleasant facade gave way to genuine surprise, which only deepened Cassius' frown.

"This news was announced on the network a few hours ago," Cassius pressed. "Director Blackwell, where have you been? Why are you wearing civilian clothes?"

Amani tapped my arm again and I turned toward her. She gestured quickly, making small, panicked motions with her hands. The silent question was clear enough.

"What do we do?"

We were deep inside an enemy factory on lockdown with no weapons, and our plan to escape with the components we so desperately needed was falling apart at the seams.

There was no denying it.

This was going to be a major issue.