Happy New Beginnings Mine headquarters wasn't a bad place to be—once Kyanite convinced the computer to shut off the flashing lights and insufferable alarm. That they still worked was surprising in and of itself, given they had lain here unused for the past century. On the other hand, they'd spent that time in a hermetically sealed chamber where few of the normal conditions causing entropy existed, so maybe it wasn't all that surprising.

“So what now?” Kyanite asked Comrade Colonel when the alarm was off.

“Well, the route we wanted to take is through that chamber with the giant matriarch, so that's obviously out. We'll have to find an alternate route, and fast if we're going to do it before the 'grand uprising'.” The air quotes were evident in his tone of voice. “Comrade Sergeant.”

“Comrade Colonel?”

“Stay here with Nationalist 'til he wakes up. I'm going to find the office building. There should be a map of the area there.”

“I'll come with you.” Said OC-1, “I calculate the most likely building to contain what we need is the one in the centre with the officey-looking windows.”

“How is he?” Kyanite asked Comrade Sergeant as he sat down next to Nationalist, who was still out cold;

“Comrade Nationalist will be fine. The bites aren't that bad, he just needs to sleep off the venom.”

Since no one was giving her explicit orders otherwise, Kyanite decided to look around for herself to pass the time.

* * *

Armed with a map given to them at the outpost, Travertine, Immortal, and Immortal's men set out in their armoured train. Getting to Happy New Beginnings Mine involved going down into a deep, foreboding and abandoned area. This whole section of the Devil's Basement was completely devoid of sentient life, as it had been mined dry decades ago. No one could say what might be crawling around in the dark, but being in a heavily armed, titanium- and steel-clad train was highly reassuring.

“So what other trouble have you been getting yourself into lately?” Immortal finally decided to breech the subject;

“Oh, you know,” replied Travertine, “the usual. Bringing concussed miners back to the land of the living, being first confidant of a witness involved in a terror bombing...”

“Oh? Do tell.”

“There's not that much to tell, actually. I brought in the police to hear what the witness had to say and washed my hands of it. Nothing else I could really do about it. A private detective showed up too.”

“That's it? Life's been that boring, eh?”

Travertine put one arm around Immortal's shoulder; “For old geezers like us two veterans of the most intense war Ragnarok has seen since the Isolation, our most exciting moments lie behind us. Everything else is an anti-climax. Even clearing Commie rail-blocks isn't like it used to be.”

“Ugh. Tell me about it. Those amateurs wouldn't have lasted a week during the Line War. But,” Immortal wagged his finger at Travertine, “you shouldn't be so sceptical of what life has to offer. Why, just take this trip for example.” He held an arm out expansively towards the windshield, “We're heading into the unknown, where no human or zene has tread for decades. What might we find? A huge wolf nest? Another Commie trap?”

“Sir, we're almost at the mine.” The driver stated, pointing an eye at a sign they were approaching. Minutes later, the form of a cave-in appeared in the headlights.

Immortal sighed; “Of course there had to be a cave-in. Not surprising, considering the age of these tunnels, but still.”

“There could be an alternate route.” Said the gunner, who also served as navigator. He held out the map helpfully; “Not far back was an opening into the mine. It's not big enough for the train to fit in, but maybe a squad on foot could find their way through the mine to one of the alternate entrances.”

“Ah-ha! You see you old geezer?” Immortal said, turning his eye to face Travertine,

“A squad on foot could also get lost forever aimlessly wandering the warrens.”

“Bah!” Immortal addressed the driver, “Take us back to that spot.” The one-eyed zene then stood up and made his way to the car behind the engine; “You're too pessimistic, Travertine. Mining tunnels have signs. This is the excitement you've been waiting for, I promise.” The commander opened the door to the car and ordered his men to check their gear and be ready to move out. “Besides, I can't get lost forever.” He smiled back at Travertine, “I've got a nickname to uphold.”

“Oh, I fully intend to come with you, don't you worry.” Assured the surgeon as he joined Immortal and the others in the troop car. “The way you handle yourself, I can't let you get too far out of arm's reach for too long at any one time.”

“That's the spirit! Here!” Immortal tossed him a combat shotgun, an ammunition harness, and a backpack. “We may have to camp out at some point.”

“Not if I can help it.” Travertine fit his surgeon's bag into the backpack and put it on.

“Sir! We're there.” Called the driver through the open door,

“Good. You two stay here with the train. If we're not back by noon tomorrow, go back to Ragnarok and come back with another team to find us.”

“Yes sir! Good luck!”

Travertine, Immortal, and the three other zene hopped out the back door of the troop car and stopped at the entrance to the mine shaft. One of Immortal's men took out a spool of string, the end of which was expertly knotted to a large spike. The spike was driven into the ground and the group continued, the string trailing behind them.

For a while, nothing much more happened. They simply wandered in silence. At each intersection with another tunnel, signs told them where to go, but the paint was so badly faded or scratched that most of them were illegible. They were able to make out just enough on some of them to be pretty sure they were headed in the right direction though.

Eventually, they reached a large, wide tunnel that seemed to have been some kind of main thoroughfare, which was a good sign. The spider-wolf corpses they soon encountered littered along the way, however, was harder to interpret.

“Is it a good sign because it means we're on the trail of something, or a bad sign because it means we're not alone down here?” Travertine asked rhetorically while Immortal examined one of the bodies.

“They're very fresh. No more than a few hours, I'd say.” He concluded. “Well, boys... follow the dead body road.”

Along the way, they came across a human body as well, which was fairly disconcerting. Given the number of spider-wolf bodies, however, it seemed whoever these people were, they had handled themselves rather well, all things considered. Certainly not your average bunch of spelunkers.

At length, they found the door to the headquarters they were looking for. They also found two dozen wolves swarming around it.

“Open fire!” Immortal screamed; he pulled out a fire bomb and threw it at the mass of arachnids, which lit them up beautifully. One of the men opened up with a flamethrower as the others tore into the mass with shotgun and carbine, and it's amazing what that amount of ordnance can do. In a minute flat, bloody pieces of wolves lay strewn everywhere, interspersed by charred corpses.

Running up to the door, Immortal ganced around and demanded; “How do you open this damn door?!”

“SmartDoor Console online.” A voice answered.

* * *

Comrade Sergeant awoke to an infuriating beeping.

“What the hell is that?”

“Warning: unauthorised entry attempt.” Answered SmartDoor;

“What?!”

“Warning: unauthor—”

“I heard you the first time!” the sergeant barked;

“Excuse me. Please do not interr—”

“Comrade, I'll be back.” He told his still-unconscious companion and dashed off to get the colonel.

When they returned, it was quickly decided they should open the door. After all, the spider-wolves sure weren't the ones talking to SmartDoor.

“Open the door.” Comrade Colonel commanded SmartDoor:

“This unit apologises, but this unit does not understand this command.”

“Execute order: open door.”

With a clang and a drawn out creak, the door slowly opened. Just in case, the Comrades had moved Nationalist to a safe spot and took up positions for a fight. As soon as the door was open wide enough, four zene and a human poured through with wolves hot on their heels.

“Switch that lever!” Comrade Colonel shouted at them while the Comrades laid down covering fire. One of the newcomers saw the lever and frantically yanked on it. The lever pulled right out, but the door started closing anyway. Unsure of what to make of this, the man chucked the lever aside and pretended not to see it.

“We weren't expecting visitors.” Comrade Colonel remarked amiably;

“Who the fuck are you?” Demanded Comrade Sergeant with no hint of amiability;

“Comrade Sergeant, there's no need to be so rude.” OC-1 said; “Would you kindly tell us who you are and how you came to be here?”

“I'm Travertine.” The human introduced himself. He approached the line of Comrades with caution. “We're here looking for a group of mechanics who disappeared.”

“Almighty above, I completely forgot all about that.” OC-1 put a hand to his face with a sigh,

“Look,” Comrade Sergeant explained; “it's a long story, but given our circumstances, I think you can agree we're all in a bad situation here, so we should just all agree to...” He slowly trailed off, eyes fixed on something behind Travertine.

“What?” Travertine asked, turning around.

“Kyanite... what is that?” Asked OC-1, almost at a loss for words.

“Why,” She began with a huge grin, “it's what I've been working on! My mechazoid frog!!” Beside the mechanic stood a knee-height, bipedal, mechanical thing that vaguely resembled a frog which she was patting on the head proudly. “Well, it's not quite what I've been working on, but it's a viable prototype.”

“You see Travertine?” Beamed a one-eyed zene, “New experiences every day!”

“Look, we're obviously getting off on the wrong foot here.” Comrade Colonel shook his head. “Let's start over. You may call me Comrade Colonel: army deserter, tunnel lurker, and train robber.” He extended a hand to Travertine.

“I'm Travertine.” He responded with a raised eyebrow, “Field surgeon. Second Line War.”

“Outstanding. Now that's taken care of, would you mind explaining how in the name of all that's holy you found us in this black hole of a corner of the Devil's dreary Basement?”

“Your entrance into this complex set off an alarm that sounded in the military outpost we were in. We were hired to find a group of mechanics that disappeared down here.”

“He actually sent someone to find us?!” Cried Kyanite with joy; “What a guy! Scoria, even if you do sell the crappiest junk on the market, I could kiss you now!”

“We've got an armoured train waiting for us.” Said the one-eyed zene who still hadn't introduced himself, “We can head right on back to Ragnarok and be done with all this shit.”

“Fuck no.” The colonel stated emphatically, “I'm not going back out there, I already lost one man today. With any luck, we'll find the map of the mines anytime now and ditch this dump.”

“What you mean 'with any luck?'” Asked Travertine,

“Well, the office is in kind of a mess. But we were well on our way to sorting it all out when you arrived. With all of us up there, I'm sure we'll find it in no time and find another way out of here.” Comrade Colonel finished optimistically and started for the office, but Travertine stopped him;

“Hold on a minute. Two more questions.”

“Fine.” The colonel rolled his eyes,

“How did you end up here, and... weren't there four mechanics?”

This elicited a sigh from the colonel; “That, my dear boy, is a long story. We'll tell you on the way.”

* * *

It was yet another day in Dawnseeker. Yet more time spent looking through boring archives whilst waiting for the next munitions train to leave. Luckily, with tensions being the way they were, it didn't actually take all that long before the next one was scheduled to leave and now that it was due to arrive any minute, Rook was heading off to see it.

Whilst walking down the pavement, hands in pockets, puffing on a cigarette, Rook didn't even notice the man-hole he was approaching. That was until it started moving. Rook watched in amazement as a pair of hands moved the man-hole cover aside and out popped a woman in mechanic's coveralls. She breathed in deeply.

“Ah! That's some good, freshly recycled air!” The cigarette fell out of Rook's mouth as person after person crawled out of the sewer and onto the sidewalk. “Oh hello there awestruck citizen!” the mechanic greeted Rook when she noticed him, “Don't be afraid, I can assure you there's a reasonable explanation for all of this.”

“Well, that's reassuring.” Rook said, crushing the cigarette under his foot.

“Hey, haven't we met before? Rook, wasn't it?” Asked one of the men; Rook immediately recognised the man as the doctor he'd met days ago at the site of the bombing that got him started on this case.

“Yes, I never forget a face, but I can't say as I ever caught your name.”

“Travertine. You still on that case?”

“Of course. It's going a bit slow, but it's coming along.”

“We've got some vital information for you then.”

“I don't know. I don't usually put much trust in vagrants who crawl out of the sewer.” Rook said as he watched a huge man emerging from the man-hole. Several of his body parts had been replaced with mechanical ones and he carried under one arm an ugly bipedal contraption which the mechanic woman fawned over.

“I know the circumstances are... weird, but you have to believe me, those two mechanics have information absolutely critical to your case.”