The F.O.X. Project

Chapter 21: The Server II

Max climbed down a service ladder in the vehicle factory. A large industrial area a quarter of the way up the Obelisk. He jumped down the remaining section of the ladder, landing with a clang.
Conveyer belts shifted materials directly from the BiRail terminals to refineries and metal printers, freshly assembling and coding all the different BiCopters, Draegs, armour and drones used by DCC for over twenty years.
'Time to cause some mischief.' Max said to himself, looking up at the Drone production line's control centre.

He climbed the short set of stairs and kicked open the door, guns out. To his disappointment, there was nobody in there. The Obelisk appeared to be incredibly understaffed at the time.
Mildly disappointed he pushed the button to shut down the drone production line and skipped out happily, knowing he had caused somebody some emotional pain.

The entire production line had gone dark after he pressed the button and Max had to use his torch to navigate the maze of walkways and gantries weaving in and out of huge assembly machines capable of producing thousands of drones an hour.

One of the things about DCC is that they are a nation that is ever hungrier for resources. They are draining the earth of its resources at an exponential rate, causing sea level to drop through water cooling and fossil fuel reserves to run dry, turning them into plastics. Even managing to use lonsdaleite (a Crystal 20% stronger than diamond in its pure form) for weapons and in endocryte armour to make it even stronger than ever before.
There is one thing DCC is after in its existence, power. And it needs a constant supply of resources to keep it.

Max manoeuvred through the factory complexes and out the other side where the only thing separating him from a few thousand foot drop was a pipe-laced steel lattice structure. Droning noises filled the air and the walkway clattered under his feet. He could see the rocky, beige landscape stretching over the horizon, the 8217 Rockefeller Centre stood level with him, the building's lights glinting in the distance.
He stepped into a lift and faced towards the view. Just at that moment a BiCopter rose up from somewhere below, directly facing him.
It fired a few bursts of its machine guns and Max felt the lift cables give way and snap, the view vanished and he started floating in the air, as if gravity had been switched off. Then he remembered that you can survive a falling lift by laying on your back and anchoring yourself in with something, so he twisted his body so that he was facing up and used his hands and feet to secure himself to the bars around him.
The lift hit the safety net and Max lost his purchase, slamming into the hard metal floor, it then broke through the net and crashed into the bottom of the shaft, a wretched mess of metal.
He got up with a grunt.
'Sure I'll walk that off...' Max said to himself with mild sarcasm, Limping slightly as he walked out of the lift shaft through the emergency doors.
'How the hell did that thing know where I was??'
Complaining wasn't going to help.

He pushed a fire door open and was faced with a massive open space, red blinking lights flashed in the darkness and a chill breeze swept through the space making him shiver.
The Server.

Max looked around through the empty black and took a step forward, his foot no longer clanged and instead made an echoed knock as he walked through the server.
His torch beamed into the darkness, striking the servers with a white glare, illuminating them. There was a lot of ground to cover if he was to find it down here.
Suddenly, his luck had run out and a huge group of DCC soldiers burst through the door behind him.
'Oh hey guys...' he managed to say before he was immobilised and dragged off.

                         ♦️  ♦️  ♦️

Ash and his team ran at a steady and quiet pace through the maintenance areas of the server, the other guys had made an excellent distraction for most of the guards patrolling down here.

He fumbled with his Mobiglass, getting the map he had scanned earlier to show his unit.
'Right guys, we are only a few hundred meters away from DEX. Let's go.'
They all started running faster, sprinting through the rows of little red dots, the only evidence of the massive black storage servers either side of them. Left, right, right again, left, up a set of stairs, then one last left.
'This should be it.'
He felt over the smooth black technology with his paw before finding the storage draw. Ash pushed it in, then pulled it all the way out.
In his paws he was holding a large roughly cuboid insertion drive completely black with red highlights.

'Okay, phew. That was a lot of effort.' He exclaims bushing down on a central panel in the insertion drive, an even smaller compartment opened up and inside it a small, grey flash drive with a little red light.
Ash unplugged the flash drive from its port and plugged the USB into a protected port in his helmet.
The lights in his helmet turned blue and it automatically went into soundproofing mode.
'Hi!' Greeted DEX, 'a quick diagnosis informs me that you are an Anthro, please stand by while I adapt and download sentient update software. I will then reconnect to the NC hive mind.'
'Oh wow.' Ash marvelled.

'Hey guys...' The unit heard Trent say through the coms, 'we have a situation, well... two, actually.'
'What are they?' Ash replied.
'Freddy Deare is dead...'
'We are on our way.'
The unit set off towards the 682nd floor, towards Trent and Crystal's locations.
On the way DEX spoke out again;
'Update is complete, uh hi! I'm going to attempt to connect to the NC hive mind now.'
'Go ahead.' Ash confirmed.
'Connecting...'
They stepped into a lift. Squeezing into the cramped space as awkward music played in the background.
'Connection secured, hello Ash.'
'Hi.'