The glittering lights of the city beyond reflected outside the vehicle as it made its way through the crowded skylanes of New Austin. Even with the flashing lights of the Peacekeepers spilling blue and red lights around it the traffic was slow to divert itself. The unmarked white sky troop carrier made its way through even though there was rather colorful language coming from the front seat, gliding along through the air. Despite the occasional rough turbulence it was nothing to get especially excited over.

Behind the heavily tinted reinforced window near her, Ryna idly watched the mass of vehicles part. Bored blue eyes drank in the sprawl of the skylane traffic not so much out of interest but more boredom. She notably was not  wearing the uniform that most would expect from Peacekeeper forces. Neither were any of the ones in the vehicle humming through the air. They weren't standard forces after all and this mission was very much off the books far as the government was considered.

The Reclaimer Corps separated its squads into five members. A thumb and four fingers. The Thumb was the squad leader and operator. The Fingers were the operatives. Not a standard group deployed. Not by any stretch of the imagination. Closer to a mercenary force employed by the United American League to delve into the undercities of the vast hive cities that had sprung up and housed almost all of the human populations on the North American Continent. Sent out to recover old technology or erase unfortunate secrets of the past regime before the Great Drought had devastated the planet.

Ryna herself was a Finger and the other three rough looking folks in the back were Fingers as well. The driver was their Thumb, a charming woman by the name of Daxel. "Motherfucker, I will glass your fucking cunt with a broken wine bottle!"

Very charming as she shouted explicatives up at the front at whoever had just cut her off. Ryna looked over at her fellows, who smirked at that. There was one who was the odd woman out. A rather mousey looking dark haired girl with glasses over the bridge of her nose. Very thick glasses. She was rather fixated on her datapad and not saying anything, trying to clearly make herself look as busy as possible. Ryna could see from the reflection in her glasses however that she hadn't moved from the same lines of text.

"Don't be nervous, doc, we don't bite. Least not VIPs like you." The blonde said with a lopsided grin as she leaned forward and looked at their charge.

A squeak escaped the little woman as she fumbled her datapad and almost dropped it, surprised at suddenly being addressed. She swallowed thickly as she looked at Ryna and pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose. Pretty cute if Ryna was being honest, but wound up like a spring without a doubt.

"I-I'm not nervous, just eager to get underway." She said.

"Dunno what's to be eager about. Undercity is just dregs and shit and old as fuck tech." One of Ryna's fellows remarked.

"Worth something to some folks, like the doc here." Ryna remarked with a shrug as she crossed her right leg over her left and felt the vehicle start to lurch downward.

The transport started to descend down into a large gaping hole in the city, lights around it directing people into tunnels. The lights and signs indicated areas to travel to. There were a number of places under the city. The actual undercity was the deepest layer, the rest had been built atop the ruins of the old city of Austin. Supposedly Austin had just been one city of many over a couple hundred years ago. As opposed to the massive sprawling thousands of miles stretching hive it was now.

"Finally, clear of those fuckheads above. Check your gear boys and girls, once we get down there not gonna be many chances for resupply." Daxel remarked.

Ryna double checked her loadout. Shotgun, check, pistol, check, short range comm, check. She frowned as she patted herself down and let out a sigh of relief. "Wew, thought I'd forgotten my smokes." The blonde let out a sigh of relief.

"Would have had to turn the whole thing around." A fellow finger remarked and there were some chuckles at that around the cabin while the mousey doc looked more confused than anything else.

Doctor Annabelle Vicar, supposedly a genius of astrophysics, energy dynamics, biological engineering and... well a whole slew of other things that sounded impressive to Ryna. Fuck if she knew what any of it meant aside from the fact the quiet and nervous girl was smart. Whatever brass wanted her to get hands on with was hard to say, but was enough they sent her down with a whole Hand. The young woman was back to looking at her datapad again, pointedly trying to not make much conversation. Soldiers probably made her nervous.

Down and down the craft went into the depths of the undercity until at last the light became a dull glow and the tunnels were looking much less well maintained. The smell was usually what a lot of folks noted. A lot of raw sewage made its way down in places here. Ryna pulled on her gas mask and the doctor almost turned green before she forced hers on her face. The blonde tapped at the pilot cabin door with her fist.

"Gonna set down close to the target area, you'll have to sweep the rest on foot. Target is an old government facility from the Pre-Drought Era. Ryna you got the Doc, the rest of you I want you to sweep the area ahead of them. We find any dregs hanging out in there, well, its a top secret mission. You know what to do." Daxel called back.

No witnesses. Typical protocol. Ryna looked out over the ruins of the Undercity. Old decaying skyscrapers and buildings that had once no doubt been impressive were collapsing ruins from the ages of decay beneath the layers of steel and concrete built above. There were people down here. Very very unfortunate people that couldn't afford to live anywhere else. Poor folks that were abandoned by society, or criminals escaping the Peacekeepers. It was a shithole. Yet they came down here pretty often, usually for fuck and all.

The craft sat itself down outside of a rather large building isolated from a lot of the rest, decaying chainlink fences up around it. The doors slid open and the other three fingers spilled out while Ryna grabbed the Doc's shoulder. The woman jumped a little at her touch but the Mercenary held her there for a second. "We're gonna follow after them, three minutes for them to sweep ahead. You stay behind me, keep your head down, and duck in cover if anyone starts shooting." Ryna said firmly.

Annabelle looked at her from behind her gasmask and nodded slowly. "R-right, yes. Of course. J-just make sure they know not to touch-"

"Yeah yeah, my folks are the best doc. You just worry about keeping your candy ass glued to Ryna, yeah?" Daxel's voice cut in over the comm.

The smaller dark haired girl fell silent at that. Ryna got the feeling she didn't quite appreciate the interruption but was far too shy to say much about it. In any event a few minutes later Ryna led the way out of the ship. She had her shotgun up and was moving after the rest of the squad. Evidently no contacts so far. When they came up next to the building it became apparent why. Doors and windows were sealed off by security shutters. There was evidence of attempted forced entry but no luck. Ryna spied a terminal and walked over to one of her squadmates working it.

"What's it look like?" She asked.

"Encryption is pretty simple, old as fuck password encryption method. Won't take me but a few moments here." The man responded.

Sure enough a few moments later the terminal was cracked and the shutters started to slowly, with the screech of aged mechanisms, descend. The door was kicked in and the three led the way with Ryna pulling the rear with Annabelle. Flashlights flickered on and bathed the facility with probably more light than it had gotten in years, combat boots clomping on aged and dusty floors. There were no bodies, appeared the facility had been abandoned before security was raised.

"You know where we are heading doc?" Ryna asked the girl following them.

"Y-yes, need to go down, base level five." The young woman piped up.

"Hey, think the elevator works?" One of the other Fingers asked, shining a flashlight on the rusted doors.

"Yeah in your dreams maybe. Some cardio is good for your fat ass." Ryna remarked as she gestured to the door to the stairwell.

The marked door was kicked in and the squad started making their way down the long flight of stairs. Ryna had Annabelle walk in front  of her now that they were confirmed no contacts. Better for her to bring up the rear in case some dumbfuck dreg made their way down here. Aside from the check in with the Thumb, all of the Fingers were quiet the whole way down as they focused on the mission and bringing the Doctor safely down there with them. Eventually the reached the bottom and the door to BL5.

The door was locked, but a couple quick kicks smashed it open. There was no active alarm system, though interestingly enough, on this level there was light. Emergency light. Ryna blinked in surprise as she flicked off her flashlight. That was a first. She had never seen a facility that managed to hold any measure of emergency power down here. The reserves in this place were probably massive if they managed to maintain power.

Annabelle meanwhile looked around this floor in wonder. There were all sorts of strange looking equipment. Tubes. Energy currents. Some monitors here or there. "Just like I'd hoped." She breathed in wonder.

The squad spread out but she seemed to know exactly where they were going from here. The dark haired woman led the way through a long hall and toward a large observation chamber. There were seats that had gathered dust here and still more signs the place was running on emergency power. The dark haired woman was looking down into the arena below the observation chamber. Ryna looked down with her and saw some kind of... pod? Kinda meaningless to her really.

"We're at the lowest part, Thumb. Finger 2, go and check some of the terminals. Whatever data we can get on this emergency power grab. Finger 3, watch the stairs. Finger 4, take the doc down to the arena down there and see what's up." Ryna called said over the comm.

Ryna for her part made her way over to a series of stairs that seemed to lead up to and office that also overlooked the arena. The door here was made of wood and the lock had rusted away with time it seemed. It pushed open effortlessly and she made did a glance over the room. It was indeed a rather nice looking office. Probably for the director of whatever facility this was. She idly looked over some of the aged pictures here. A rather plain looking dark haired man was in some family photos, wearing a prim labcoat.

She spied some documents on the desk and idly picked one up at random.

"Date April, 6, 2078.

Funding is being frozen. The whole of Austin is being evacuated with the New Austin initiative coming down from the top. I'm ordering all operations ceased for the moment until I can speak to the Governor. We are so close. We have a working version ready, it just needs to be tested. If I can talk some sense into him we won't even need to worry about New Austin. We can reverse the drought potentially. There is no limits to what the Homo Novus experiment could yield. This is a notice to all employees however to stop all testing and return to your homes to prepare for evacuation potentially.

Security doors will be put in place in the event of a temporary relocation to New Austin. You are all doing work beyond what was expected of you. I want you to know I'm proud of you. I hope, I pray, that our efforts are not in vain and to see the destiny of mankind realized.

God Watch Over You All,

Dr. Raymond Vicar, PhD."

It was dated two hundred years ago. It wasn't the date that drew her eyes. It was the name. Ryna read over it a few times just to be sure. Vicar. Like Annabelle Vicar. There were a number of dots that were starting to connect and a lot of questions that she suddenly had for the mousey little doctor they had brought down all this way.

BANG. BANG.

Gunshots rang out through the facility and Ryna rushed to the window overlooking the office and saw Finger 4 fall like a sack of potatoes with blood spreading out from a couple bullet holes in the back of his head. The gun was smoking on the floor and the doctor was already removing her clothes in a hurry.

"Thumb, all Fingers, Finger 4 is down! VIP has downed Finger 4!" Ryna called over the comm as she rushed down from the office and toward the door into the observation room. The door was made of some kind of reinforced metal and was sealed shut now. She ran back up to the observation chamber and fired her shotgun into the glass. It cracked it but that glass was thick. Bulletproof. The roar of the shotgun left her ears ringing.

The doctor jumped at the noise and looked up at Ryna for a moment. Their eyes met for a moment. Her mousey and normally nervous face was set in an expression of determination before she slid her now naked form into the pod. Which started to release some kind of steam and seal itself up. Ryna pounded on the glass.

"Hey! Get the fuck out of there! What the fuck are you doing!?" Ryna screamed as the rest of the fingers arrived and were trying to get into the room. Trying to crack the door, trying to shook the bulletproof glass.

The pod whirred to life slowly and the emergency lights started to flicker on and off. They started to flicker faster as the pod whirred louder and louder. "What the fuck is happening in there, Finger 1?" Daxel's voice came over the comm.

Ryna was transfixed on the pod as the lights flickered and the pod itself started to glow. She wasn't sure what she was watching but for whatever reason she couldn't look away. Slowly the flickering stopped. The light inside the pod started to die down, the whirring noise dying down as well. The squad managed to get access to the arena and spilled inside aside from Ryna herself, two men pointing guns at the opening pod as it slid and hissed to open.

Ryna watched the pod open. She watched as a pink mist slowly crept from within the pod, hanging and lingering in the air. She looked in the pod and saw... no one. No sign of the woman inside that had just entered.

"I... I don't know Dax. I don't fucking know." Ryna breathed.