Opening a Door and Punching Another

Until now, exploration of the so-called ‘rust town’ didn’t go much further than its door and the area around it. The best anyone did was send some drones inside after prying the door, but a couple of meters inside was enough to kill the signal. So, since they couldn't go much further as is, and since very few were courageous, or crazy, enough, no one entered the place until now.

The area was a potential hazard with the added demerit of having companies gunning for it. Anyone could see how bad of an idea would be to explore it without a permit, and very few even knew of the place to begin with. And that was without the fact that almost no one came here either way, so it wasn't as if they had any scout information to go with right now.

It was very similar to what happened on the other ruin if you knew about it, although this one seemed bigger in many ways.

“Well then, team… How do we open this door?” Amy asked as she pretended to pull one side of the door, feeling that it was, indeed, stuck, but not using enough strength to actually pry it with her bare hands. “Is the plan brute-forcing our way through? And by the way, we will be pausing the paid chat for a while, okay? Reading it inside a dangerous area would be too much...”

“I think there must be some mechanism behind this door, but it's likely buried somewhere or destroyed,” Henrique explained based on hunches, which was surprisingly in line with the truth. “We’re already lucky enough that this cave connected with a door instead of a wall, so we can’t complain much…”

“Them let us blow this wall up!”

“Don’t!” Lily shot her partner down before she could rush to the explosives box, worried she would actually use them inside a cave. “They already pried it open once, so we can just do the same, right?”

“Our droids aren’t very high-spec, but they should manage to pull this door.”

“Or we maul them open with hammers and crowbars.”

The two sisters gave their opinions on the situation, both weirdly analogic to Amy’s taste, but working ones nonetheless. She was already making her move either way, so it wasn’t as if they would need much to slide these doors.

Getting them unstuck was only a matter of having something small clear the rails, something she could do well.

“Move away then, Amy. I want to see this ‘rust city’ already and I believe everyone watching us is curious too.” The purple idol rushed the situation as she was getting a little too curious by now and wanted to head inside already. Lilianna was a detective true by heart even if, lately, she had only used these skills to help Amy hack into things.

Her life was more about going with her partner’s random moves, idol activities, data collection, and dates she would prefer to not talk about. Having a chance to investigate something like an old ruin was very interesting for her.

So, Amy obliged without a problem and started to move the droids, having two of them drop their baggage and move to the polymer door. The tools bolted on them went in position and they started to try and pull, even if it was a bit of a show without much value.

She let enough to have the doors make noise as they slid away, but the droids weren’t doing much in reality. Only enough to not draw suspicion. The doors were, in almost a literal way, cut open on rail level by now, so they weren't that hard to open right now.

“Oh? That was fast…” The professor spoke as the droids took less than a minute to force the doors. “It seems we didn’t need to change their servos in the end…”

“Wasted money it seems. Not fun at all.”

“Don’t whine over the past, you both. I’m sure the extra torque will be useful somehow… And it isn’t as if we were this out of funds, right…?” Kuro stared at the other two members of the university, with them both looking away in answer. “We’re not broke, right? Right?! Answer me, one of you!”

“Wow!“ Amy exclaimed as she ignored everyone else to enter the ruins with the drones acting as lighting and a small connection beacon left behind. “Such a weird place this is... So many old machines and rows of storage...”

She walked through the now open doors and into a large open area filled with beaten-down shelves and old machines and tools. Most of them were extremely rusted and some parts of the room collapsed, but the place was in a good state for a ruin.

This kind of thing happened when you had something so isolated from any ecosystem that little could react with it. The whole area was too stagnant to create an ecosystem, so rust was the worse that could happen.

How this room lacked a clear exit, the proper one likely being in the collapsed area, was a little worrying, but doable. At least Amy could even use her sensors while inside. Why this place acted like an isolation bubble wasn't something she could answer right now though. Normal ones would have some trouble with all the interference and her connection wasn’t good in any metric, but it was doable.

She also had other ways to move around this ruin, but they were less reliable and could bring suspicions she didn’t want to deal with.

“It fits the whole ‘rust city’ idea for sure,” Lily commented as she too entered the ruins while ignoring the so-called scholars. “I wonder what these things were meant to do at their time... Having so many similar-looking tools should mean they were important for something, right?”

“Or these are unnecessarily complex grass cutters, you know? And those could very well be machines made only to cook rice, could they not? Or perfect craftsmanship used with the sole purpose of peeling fruits.” The pink idol spoke as she poked some random dusty handle, which then broke and she pretended to not have a thing to do with it. “It is impossible to know without trying them out properly, but they are too far gone to be repaired as is. It would take a lot of time.”

Repairing these wasn’t an option at all but, with the proper equipment and time, getting a theory of what they did wouldn’t be too hard. It likely wouldn’t be an exact definition though. The cultures were too different and the fact that how a thing could be used wasn’t necessarily what it was meant to would affect it. But it should be enough to replicate things and get a theory on what they should do.

Amy could also nudge the guesswork toward the right answer in some cases too. Even if her debatable knowledge and non-functional memory wouldn't be a perfect help too.

“That’s a weird way to put it, but you’re not wrong… Anyways, what next? I can see some windows, but the safest would be to get a path on ground level. It would be a problem if we had to flee and the only path was high up…”

“Remember that we’re inside a cave, you both.” A tired voice added as its owner took notes of the rusted machines in the area. “I don’t want to die here and causing unnecessary damage to the ruins would be a breach of contract.”

The thin lawyer was very silent when moving around, almost enough to make the two idols not notice him, but his aim was very clear at the moment.

He was taking notice of anything that could potentially be used outside. Ever since the last one, ruins were believed to be vaults of unknown tech, so this much was expected from someone working at a megacorp.

He was reasonable enough to warn them that causing too much damage to the ruins would be against Henrique’s deal though. Amy was even starting to think he wasn’t a bad person per se. Not exactly what she expected of someone that worked in the same place as the deceased ill-spirited lawyer she met before. Not that being better than that was very hard.

She was even inclined to tell him to not lose time with this place, but that wouldn’t do much more than make him ask why. Instead, the pink idol ignored their guest for now and moved the drones close to the windows. They could find what was outside easier than she could, and it would also work well If they found some novelty to show the viewers.

As she was doing it though, the three remaining members finally decided to enter, with the droids following behind like Amy was ordering them to. She wasn’t willing to let three proper civilians without security in some dark cave like this, even if she suspected they weren’t that weak in reality.

“Do we make a hole in the wall or go through a window?”

“There’s something looking dangerous around there?” Lily asked as she sat on some piece of rest something to wait for her friend scouting around. “I don’t want to jump a window and fall into some huge pit or anything of the kind…”

“Let me take a better look around then…” Amy asked as her drones went around the windows and gave her a look at her options. “Two sides of the building seem blocked, but I can see open areas on the others. One looks like another building and the other seems to be a clearer space.”

“Go to the other building!”

“Go to the open area.”

Two voices joined in the conversation, giving their opposite opinions on the matter they weren’t asked about. Not that it was a problem since Amy’s plan was getting votes anyway.

It looked like neither side was too different or had some glaring danger in them, so the difference would be more of an order matter than anything.

They were to explore the whole of the ruins, which meant going through all paths either way.

“An open space doesn’t have anything interesting for us to look at, so it’s better if we go to the place that’s more interesting," Kuro argued as she moved closer to the two idols. “We have to make things look cool, right?”

“Or we’ll find something dangerous and it’ll have an open path to our exit. We better go to the open area and see what’s around.” Shiro countered, also moving closer as she did. “There’s no point if we end up blown up here.”

“But that’s boring!”

“You’re right, but still…”

“Can’t you just break the windows and look around, Amy? What’s the point of trying to decide anything before seeing it?” Lily ignored the black and white students as she kept looking around without much focus on whatever was happening around her. Though, Amy knew this meant her partner was a little too on edge and looking for danger right now.

“Can I? It feels like unnecessary damage…”

“It’s not, don’t worry.” Henrique stopped his own notes on what was around them to answer the pink idol’s question. “That contract may be scummy, but it’s not unreasonable enough to make us unable to explore. Isn’t that right, you there?”

“You should use my position if you’re that against my name…” The lawyer answered the aggressive professor. “But, yes, as long as it's reasonable and won’t affect whatever valuable’s around, go for it.”

“You heard the rat. Go on, girl.”

“That is… I… I do not know what to say, but I will continue then…”

Amy wasn’t that sure of how to deal with this animosity, so she soon decided the best would be to give up on it and keep going. More even, she would be more pleased doing so either way. She would only interfere if either of them was ever a problem.

And as such, the pink girl went on with what she was going to do, breaking through the closest window to each of her drones to spy the areas around.

“It looks like we are on the side of another kind of warehouse and in front, we have whatever remained of a street, I believe. I can see other buildings connected to them both though.”

What she was explaining could be seen by the people watching her stream, but Lily was the only other person that could access it by now. Which was the only reason why she was saying it aloud. The others couldn’t connect their phones with Amy’s hidden beacon, so their connection was a little too bad for video right now. The frilly girl was even unsure of how they never asked about it and only believed when she talked about having a way to stream down here.

For her, in particular, acting under the assumption that someone she didn’t know had some weird method she couldn’t use was a bad prospect. It was a personal danger to her and a likely danger to Lily, and she wouldn’t risk this much again.

Either way, she and her viewers could see the decrepit building with a collapsed wall on one camera, and the semblance of a street on the other. It was a wonder that these were somehow recognizable and standing considering how old they were.

Nothing around there seemed dangerous enough to avail changing plans though.

Or that was how it seemed until Amy noticed that there was something abnormal on the debris blocking the exit of their building.

“Is something wrong, Amy?” Her purple-themed partner noticed the glimpse of a reaction and got up right away even if she couldn’t say what was the reason. For Amy though, solving the weirdness she was seeing came first than answering Lily.

“Hey, professor, are you sure no one entered this place before us? Maybe some people from the lower levels or a prospector team…”

“Huh? I’m pretty sure no one could enter this place without breaking the seals I removed a while ago, so it would be hard.” Henrique answered without thinking much, only noticing the implications of this question after. “But why are you asking this much? Did you find someone around there?”

“I am unsure… We shall go to the open area if all of you can agree with it.” She spoke while moving to the wall closer to her target and touching it to let her nanobots do the work. “Something may have crossed this area already.”

And then, with a controlled punch and a lot of noise, the frail-looking idol created an almost perfect square opening. An action that made most of the people around her unable to react at all.

A result that was very different from the uproar created on the internet.