As Raye helped the soldier up onto the walkway. He quickly, and rudely, thanked her for helping him up. "At least someone has some common sense," the man muttered, looking up at the barrel of Laura's gun. He didn't seem to give much reaction to it, aside from a loud and drawn-out sigh.
"Archer, the name's Archer," he answered, slowly reaching for the thing he threw onto the walkway, "as for your other question I was trying to crawl through the vent... and, well, y'know how it's like right now."
“What for?” Laura's voice carried a hint of her fear, despite the disguise of aggression.
Archer facepalmed, mumbling something to himself as he looked back to her. "To leave this place. I'm tired of dodging robots and annoying kids like yourself."
"We're also trying to get out of here." Raye said.
Laura was unsure what to make of that statement… She was skeptic about his supposed motives. She continued to point her attention, and her weapon at him.
"Hmm... well, you two do look like you can be good bai--battlers." Archer said, looking over the two heavily armed Inklings in front of him, who also held him at gunpoint. "How'd you two even get out anyway?"
Laura continued her stare without a word said. She didn't actually know how she, Raye, or anyone else got out of the arena, having awoken in the middle of a firefight.
"Combat testing that was interrupted when the creatures we were supposed to be fighting decided to stage a breakout." Raye explained. "Seems the Octarians were interested in how we'd do against their science projects."
"You... ****ing idiots," Archer slowly said, shaking his head, "alright, alright. Maybe this isn't all bad. This 'project' sounds intelligent, and it didn't kill either of you. So maybe, just maybe you and your friends didn't just unleash a horrible menace on the world."
"To be fair, we did manage to kill one of them. The other two are probably still tearing up the area we left them in."
"There are multiples?" Archer clasped his hands together in concern, slowly bringing them up to his helmeted face, "did any of them refer to each other in terms of gender or sex?"
“Yes, and yes.” Laura spoke up.
"Three in total that I saw. One's dead."
"Well... at least you killed one of a possibly self-sustaining colony of killing machines," Archer huffed.
"I get the feeling you know more than you're letting on."
“Y-Yeah!” Laura quickly interjected.
"I might know something..." He admitted, thoughtfully holding his chin. "Since I'm in no position to do anything right now, as I am at your mercy. What do you feel like asking?"
“Let's start with where are we exactly,” Laura demanded.
"Maintenance shaft 24-B, in the Research and Development part of Sunburst Inkling."
"I believe that voice is right," WOOPA chimed in.
“Alright… What were those creatures? And what are they here for?”
Archer shrugged, "a variety of things. Although they tend to target Inklings such as yourself, forming them into some weird creature and fitting all kinds of treatments and carp into them. As for what they're there for? I don't know."
After kneeling for so long now, he shifted around to keep some feeling in his lower body. "What did these 'creatures' look like?"
“Big. Round. Armored,“ Laura responded, “More tentacles than anyone should have… Mechanical stuff too.”
She shuddered. “Scary, like something straight out of a horror show.”
"What did these tentacles look like?" He poked further.
“Uh…”
Laura was struggling to remember the creatures.
"Pinkie, do you remember?"
"Whiplike, and they could use them as additional arms if needed."
“Did they even have any arms?” Laura posed, not remembering anything but their size, roundness, and many tentacles.
"They had legs. Seems like they used their tentacles as arms"
"So... a quadruped creature, with many tentacles for arms, and partially cybernetic. Nice." He said, although he felt as though they could tell him more, he didn't want to push his luck.
"Sounds like something that would've been used for sneaking assassination and abduction purposes." He remarked.
Laura shuddered at the thought of being handled by one of the creatures.
“I don't think so, they were pretty conspicuous. Made quite a bit of noise.”
"Not to mention, the males have a bit of a temper. The females seemed more reasonable."
“Hunh?” Laura turned her head to look at Raye. “What do you mean?”
"The male we talked to was definitely aggressive. Even tried to attack us when we said that we had killed the other male. The female seemed to try to calm the male down and had a more peaceful attitude."
“What did you discuss with them?” Laura asked, having no memory of such an event.
"Largely the possiblity of working together to escape. They were also looking for their daughter."
“Daughter?!”
Laura was shocked to hear it. “You mean there's an entire family here?!”
"Okay," Archer calmly began, "so you're telling me they have a family."
Laura suddenly perked up and readjusted her aim. “Wait a sec… You're getting info out of us! What's your deal?!” Her skeptisim was strengthened with this realization.
And her confusion.
"I know a lot about this place, Blue, but I didn't know about these creatures." Archer flinched from the barrel being thrust into his face again.
“If that's the case, then what's your position here?” Laura demanded of him once again.
"I'm a spy, here to siphon research and feed it back to my PMC. I don't work here," he answered.
Laura's head tilted to her right. “Okay… So how did you even get here in the first place?”
"I jumped out of a fast-moving aircraft with a wingsuit," Archer replied, almost as if it was no big thing. "It was a bit hard not to land into this laboratory without being reduced to a purple smear across the ground. But it's not the hardest thing I've ever done."
Laura let out a quick, gruff sigh. She had figured that her last question would give them key info on how to escape. But of course it wouldn't be that easy.
“Then how have you managed not to get caught?“ Laura asked of him, her skepticisim growing. ”This place has been all alarm bells and such as long as we've been out.”
"My armor," he replied, stretching his arms out to show the unusual looking gear, "I won't say the specifics but it allows me to hide from their sensors. Very useful, but it's really hard to take off when I need to pee."
"Also, you told me you broke out with one of the experiments. That's kind of a big deal." He pointed out.
"He does have a point, Laura."
“Ehehe…”
Laura was a bit embarrassed by that.
"And please stop calling us colors. I'm Raye, and this is Laura."
"Sure, whatever you say, Raye, you're the ones with the guns." He said. Even though he was armed, the only problem with him doing anything is that his gun was still holstered on his leg. Not in his hand.
"In any case, we need to get moving. According to my OOPA, the gravity's been increased in this area for an unknown reason."
His last statement caught Laura's attention. “Wait, you're telling me you skydived here and been spying around without any weapon.”
Laura shifted her weight towards her left side and relaxed a little, amused by the thought.
“I didn't take you as being someone who would make such a stupid mistake.”
Archer shrugged his shoulders, the amusement in his voice failing to hide a grin behind his dark visor, "well, shows you what I can do."
“Hah!” Laura laughed. “I know better than to take you paramilitary types to your word.”
She shifted her weight again, this time in a stance that showed her comtempt for the man. “If it weren't for my uncle and all the bloodshed back at—” Laura paused, catching herself mid-sentence.
Her stance was aggressive once again.
“Alright. Where is it? I know you'll have something on you.” She motioned the barrel of her gun towards his chest. “A knife? Some kind of pistol? I know you gotta have it somewhere.”
Raye stood there, watching her friend sass the newcomer.
“And thinking about it… Who were you talking to back there?” Laura inquired.
Tensing up, Archer sensed that he wasn't gonna be able to talk his way out of this, he talked too loudly and that was a big mistake on his part. Although, maybe he could get bonus points for honesty. It was a vain hope, but still one he had.
"My team came here to extract me," he said quickly.
"If they did, then they should have room for a few more." Raye pointed out.
“Yeah.” Laura added. Though she was actually uneasy about the prospect of riding along with any sort of soldiers for hire, it didn't show.
Archer didn't respond to either of them, he simply sighed. It seemed he wasn't all too pleased with this sudden arrangement either.
"Not sure if that'd fly with my captain," he eventually said.
“Well…” Laura began, ”I guess as an alternative, we could just shoot you here and now.”
She let out a small, short laugh before continuing in a singsong tone. “I'd guess that wouldn't fly with your captain either, yes?”
"Then you'd let go of a bargaining chip," he pointed out the error of her threat. "And you want to escape, don't you? You don't even know where you are in the domes."
“Ex-act-ly,” she responded in a snide maner. “Only one way to go from here.”
Laura lowered her weapon from the ready stance it had been for the conversation.
"As for the captain, I'm pretty sure the intel we have would be more than enough to increase his payday."
“But if you try anything…” Laura added as a stern warning, “I'll be getting some more target practice with this thing.” She motioned her weapon for a moment, drawing attention to it.
"So, what do you say?" Raye asked.
"Well, what can I say? I like living." Archer said, slowly standing up from his position beneath Laura's gun. He kept his hands in the air though, just to show he wasn't going to try anything.
Now they had a captive with them in a lab who may or may not be seeking to stab them in their backs. The two of them organized a plan to keep Archer in front just in case he tried anything, and the three stood there in the walkway feeling gravity exert its toll on them. The man's radio occasionally chattered with something until he quickly turned it off when he noticed Laura's OOPA was giving him an intense look, as was Raye's OOPA.
The man seemed irritated about both of them, but didn't try anything. For now.
Now what?