Stairway to Somewhere

The Last Informant

Lloyd blinked. "I think.. I think it's fine. The lenses are red when it's off, and I didn't see a glitch or anything."

Lloyd logged into the manifest app on his phone. Fortunately, it still showed him as updating. He tried to click on it, but like before, it was inaccessible.

"Yeah it's still on. I'm fine." Lloyd reassured her, showing her his phone.

"That's a relief." She replied, giving him a hug. Bethany gave them a curious look while Tony frowned.

"What's that made out of?" He asked, walking around the tables. He got a little too close to Lloyd's face, causing him to back up.

"No clue. Maybe the same tech as the black boxes." He answered truthfully. Tony looked at his machine, then looked back at Lloyd.

"Could be protected in the inside with special shielding. Doubtful these regular automatons they churn out will have a similar feature. We're all set, so let's go over the plan."

He grabbed a whiteboard and a marker. In a rushed manner, he quickly drew a crude cuboid shape, making little boxes for the windows, a staircase on the right, and three doors.

"Ok." said Tony, snapping the cap back on the marker.

"This is-"

"Terrible." said Bethany.
"Shoddy." Phoebe answered.

"The warehouse." Lloyd replied, smiling at the two women.

"Thank you." Tony said, annoyed.

"I doubt y'all could do better. Anyways, we are going to approach from this right side, go up these stairs, and look in through the windows. Then, once we know the layout, we-"

"Come back here and gather reinforcements" Lloyd interrupted. "This is simply a scouting mission. We won't be going in and dragging out an automaton, even with your machine, without some type of distraction, and some type of transportation."

Tony agreed, walking over to his machine.  "Because of how big this is, it'll have to be kept in two backpacks that we'll have to carry, one with the machine, the other with the power source. The two people holding these will have to stay close together, but we shouldn't need to separate anyways. The casing is finally done printing, so I'll put it on now."

Lloyd pulled out his phone and called Ben.

"Yo." Ben answered, sounding cheerful. "Glad you're still alive. I heard what happened."

"What facility do you turn in the automaton to when you're done with work?"

Ben stayed silent for a few moments.

"At first, I didn't return it anywhere, I would just get a log out prompt and exist. Now there are two facilities, and it directs me to go to the nearest charging station."

"Is the factory you were talking about near here?" Lloyd asked Bethany. She nodded.

"I need you to go there and act like something might be wrong with your machine." Lloyd told him.

"You aren't going to do anything dangerous, right? After today they've sent out more automatons, sweeping the streets for anyone causing havoc."

"Don't worry about me. We're just going to take a peek." Lloyd said before hanging up. Tony was shoving his machine into one big backpack, while Bethany put the car battery in the other.

"We're all set, except for this." Tony handed Lloyd a cloth mask.

"It's not much, but it's better than nothing."

Lloyd thanked him and together, the four walked out of the room and took a right in the alley, towards a trampoline and two guards.

That's why she was on the edge. Lloyd thought as they approached the two men. She had an escape route.