Assault on the Deadman and Extra Manpower

“I told you we should avoid going below the server floors...” An uninterested Amy commented as she and her two armored and armed friends finally saw what was the goal of the explosion that started all.

“Shut up, Amy.”

“But it is true!”

In summary, the trio planning to invade the main laboratory on the 495th floor had decided to, just in case, check on how the situation in the lobby was.

All they managed instead was discovering the fact that a good chunk, if not all, of the emergency stairs had been destroyed.

Everything below the 450th floor or so was gone.

“Maybe we could jump down…” Richard proposed while looking down the dark hole.

“You would have a decent chance of survival, but I am sure you would not be able to climb up so easily.” Commented Amy while running the calculations on her mind.

"Don't you two think this is getting weirder and weirder?"

"What do you mean, Lily?"

"The attackers blew the emergency stairs, but they also had its entrances blocked, right? If Amy hadn't appeared, then it wouldn't be as if someone could use them to flee."

"Maybe it was just to draw my men and nothing else..."

"So they choose an irrelevant target like the emergency stairs? It would make sense, I think, but still."

"No one ever uses this place and it's so deep in the building that you would easily feel the explosion all around but wouldn't risk taking the whole thing down, so it should be that..."

"Yes. Unless they knew we would bring an abnormality like Amy here, no one would fortify a dammed staircase."

"Worry not, Lily, I am but a common idol, so no one would expect my cute self to be capable of hacker feats."

"Anyone who was at that party and had a half-backed knowledge would though. You weren't really pretending to be fighting fair there."

"Now that you mention it..."

"Anyway, should we go down, ladies? We could bring some reinforcements."

“It can be done, I think."

"I don't feel much confidence from this, but..."

By this point, both Richard and Amy were trying to measure the fall and calculate if someone could survive with power armor, but neither could be sure.

Before they could reach a decision though, the third member of the group interfered on their lines.

“I don’t think you two should be thinking so hard about it, you know? I’m not used enough to these things to manage a landing and our goal isn’t even that down, even if most civilians and one of our VIPs are…”

“I actually don’t want to see what is happening down there now that you mention... I’ll feel terrible and my reputation in the security business will be done for.”

“Don’t even tell me about it. Just the paperwork I’ll have to solve is depressive enough even without thinking about the possible number of casualties down there.”

“We cannot hear gunshots though, you see? Maybe they do not want to attack the civilians.”

“It would be good…”

Lily was now gloomily looking towards the empty space with Richard in a similar mood by her side, but their waiting time had to be ended.

"More than that, actually, this place would be perfect as a trap. We can only go down while jumping through the walls, so if there's someone down there..." Said Lily as to finally convince the other two, which worked almost right away.

“I believe we should return to the objective, you see?”

“Yes, we should…”

The detective nodded while turning around and the paid soldier followed suit, both walking after the pink idol who was already moving up.

In her face that couldn’t be seen, though, there was a slightly frantic and unusually strained expression as she tried to confirm Lily's theory.

Without much more to say, they continued climbing up under the sound of metallic steps until, without any explanation, Amy came to a full halt.

“Can any of you hear it?” Her cryptic words made the two people who could fight instantly surround the idol, each one watching one of the sides of the stairs.

As they focused on hearing, a march of metal boots hit their ears, checking both sides before turning to the closest door.

“Nothing coming from below.” The mercenary confirmed while watching the stairs they had just passed through.

“Nothing from above too...” Answered the detective aiming towards the stairs above them.

“So it means…”

They both turned around and went to the fortified door while, passing between them without a care in the world, Amy went hiding again.

With them both closer to it though, both Richard and Lily managed to hear new sounds coming from the other side.

A mix of hurried steps, gunfire, and metal being cut, which they both could somewhat deduce what meant.

“Lilianna, what do we…?”

Lily was entitled with taking decisions back when they sealed the top floor, so she was the one who had to decide on how to deal with the situation.

The raven-haired woman couldn’t promptly decide on what was the best situation due to the lack of information though, so she instead dropped it all and used her intuition.

“Open the door, Amy!”

“I cannot close it without sealing the floor, you see?!” Shouted the pink idol that couldn’t be seen right now.

She had already explained this much when the trio left the top floor, but each floor of NorCo's headquarters could be sealed.

Thick metal shuttles would block the passage and be almost impossible to break, but they had no way of opening after the seal was set.

The only exceptions were the openings of the top floor and the safety shuttles inside the main lab.

The real problem was that, after opening a door, Amy would likely lose control of it and be forced to seal the floor.

“Just do it!”

It seemed that Lily didn't care about it at all though, so there was only one thing to do now...

“Roger that!”

The door made a number of clicking sounds and then, a few moments later, a thumb-up appeared in the corner of the room.

Lily nodded at it in answer and signaled with her eyes for Richard to charge with her.

“Go!” She shouted after seeing how both of them were ready, and the door was opened in a sudden swing.

The person trying to saw it open fell to the ground while carrying a gown-wearing and bone-thin bald person on his back as it happened. “What is…?!” She surprised soldier shouted, barely keeping the working saw away from his body.

Around him, a group of power-armored men protecting could be seen fighting the advancing foes.

“Come inside already!”

Lily cut the confused person equipped with a hyper-thin saw before he could say anything more.

Her tone made him and his companions hurry without ever thinking of commenting on the situation.

As they retreated, from the depths of the floor filled with huge machines, a column of archaic and rough-looking robots made their way forward.

Most of them met the intelligent rounds of the soldiers' rifles, but for each droid that fell, another three appeared in sight.

It was pretty much a wave of metal.

They had enough space to retreat though, but, as the door was being closed, and just for a moment, Amy noticed the glint of a camera lens focusing on her.

Although weird, nothing really happened and the sealing shuttles went down before any enemy could reach them.

“I’m glad to see you again, sir. We thought we were done for…”

The oldest-looking member of the squad gave a small salute to his commander while saying so, prompting the other members to follow suit.

In general, they seemed tired, but well.

“No need to thank me. Doing this much was a given, but…” Richard talked while looking to the now sealed floor as if wanting to see what was behind it, his reasons obvious to most. "Can you explain what was happening here? The floors in the area should have at least a few dozen of you guys just to begin with."

His eyes wandered around the somewhat beaten and mostly tired armed men while trying to fully comprehend the situation.

"We were a few dozen at the beginning for sure and we grouped up to find the young Norcraff here, but then..."

"Those robots appeared and overran you all, right?" The detective's interjection made the squad leader bite his lips in frustration for a moment, but he soon recovered.

"We checked all five floors around this one while the capsule was being opened and then banded together after a while like ordered. The plan was to get the VIP and leave with the safe elevator, but it stopped working before we could retreat. Almost at the same time, and coming out of nowhere, those metal things started to pour inside the room and beat down anyone who they grabbed."

The memories made the experienced mercenary grimace, and his companions all shared a similar expression, but it wasn't over yet.

"We kept clearing the endless waves of robots and fleeing in search of some escape route while our number kept going down for a while. We finally managed to find the entrance for these stairs, even if it was heavily locked. And that's how we got here."

“I see... You’re safe now, but you better move on still. I don’t think this brat in your arms will manage much without his ‘life-support’...” Remarked Lilianna to the focused men while looking with a small hint of disgust at the frail human being carried by one of them.

“And who would you be, missy?” Answered briskly the squad leader only to suddenly lose his breath when he heard the short answer.

“I’m this thing’s sister.”

All security guards focused their eyes on Lily as they heard so.

They all stopped to burn the sights of the pistol-armed black-haired woman that could very well be their boss soon, all things considered.

Even if she was known to be a cop and to be in bad graces with most of her family, it was better to not risk it.

“Sir…?” The leader reacted before being cut by the same woman that had talked before.

“I said to hurry, didn’t I?”

“You heard the lady, men. The only close-by device is the one in my office, so hurry there, got it? Two of you go guard there and the other four can keep following me.”

The still hurried guards saluted again and followed Richard's orders without asking much more.

It was annoying for Lily, but that was beyond the point as they rushed to climb up the stairs right away in a defensive circle around their VIP.

Even with this many guards, the trio still kept some distance while moving.

“Those little pieces of…”

“Well, Ms. Lilianna, you’re a cop and most of my guys never saw you in person, so…”

“Next time I’ll stick my badge into their asses then! Damn, that bony retard was ‘living’ inside that stupid tube for most of his life and now they’re carrying him around like a sack of potatoes.”

“So you actually care about your brother in the end, eh…”

“Not really. He’s just like the damned fools inside that deathtrap floor down there, you know? Pretty much useless and not that much of a loss to the world, but he has something the other fools inside there don’t…”

She glared at the lower floors while still advancing, also taking her time to eye the quiet Amy a little just in case, before continuing.

“That dumbass is a suspect.”

“Suspect?! The young Norcraff? I don’t think he could…”

“Robots, lack of communication, Amy having trouble... Whoever’s attacking this place has a good grasp of computers and can somehow evade cameras, so…”

“A hacker going from inside a VR capsule would work quite well, right?” Noted the pensive idol almost by reflex before going silent again.

“It also explains why there were so many enemies around the floor.”

“It weirdly makes sense…” Richard agreed.

“It’s something to later though. We have to bring our suspicious idol there to the main lab first so we can get some safety before doing a real investigation.”

“Works to me.”

Their exploration was done for the time being and with some extra numbers added to their forces even.

It was possibly at the expense of some customers living inside NorCo’s VR devices, but that could be ignored for now.

Now it was the moment to reach the main computer they needed.