It wasn't much of a surprise that Anderson had contacted Counters again. I hadn't taken me long to settle in. Then again, I owned next to jack shit. I'd been saving up for some stuff. It would have taken, oh, a few decades to buy anything I wanted, but I was used to that sort of thing even before.

  Though to say I was a bit nervous was a bit of an understatement. Communications had been light. They had to be, given how getting from the Outpost to the Ark was considerably more difficult than what I was used to. I'd gone pretty far off script from what the original plan was when it came to Syuen. Sure, I fully intended to screw with her as much as I could get away with.

  But Enikk threw a baseball-sized hole in any of the plans I'd made with ease. I wasn't exactly complaining, on account of the new boss not being the same as the old boss. But it would not surprise me if Enikk did not do this for my benefit. Especially after I double-checked to make sure Enikk was what I thought they were.

  Not just artificial intelligence, but in charge of the entire Ark, to boot. I highly doubt they had a hand in every pie, at least an active one. But that didn't exactly incline me to trust them, even if they were a proper AI, not some predictive algorithm.

  Anderson probably would understand my plan and my reasoning behind it. The hard the blow Syuen took, the less likely she was to do something stupid. Even if it was simply because she had been restrained by the board. That's why I decided to go big when I knew I had the ear of one of the highest-ranking minds on the Ark. Fat a lot of good it did me, but I at least got part of what I wanted.

  And avoid having anyone get their mind wiped in the process. I had no clue why that had been such a popular form of punishment by the Ark elite. Largely because it wasn't a punishment at all. That would require the average person to give a shit about Nikke, though the fact that it was a punishment in the first place had, implications.

  Implications that were not backed by anything I could find in any records. Such a punishment at least implied that some would find Nikke's important enough that mind-wiping them would actually cause issues. However, everything I could find showed the same thing. That Nikke's were by and large, uncared for, below even second-class citizens until several Nikke's blew themselves up after trying to leave the Ark due to their mistreatment.

  Where the Government cut the cord of the elevator, sending them plummeting toward the Ark and nearly killing tens of thousands, as well as crippling the Ark for years if not decades if the elevator hadn't been destroyed.

  Even more so that it was Nikke's getting punished for the actions of others. If it weren't for the fact that this was literally it for humanity, and the loss of the sanctuary would be our extinction?

  Don't get me wrong, those who were responsible for creating and perpetuating this shitshow needed to be punished and needed to be punished hard. And while under normal circumstances would normally see those people long dead and buried, I doubted that was the case this time around.

  If Mustang has been in charge of Tetra since the Ark, and still looks as good as he does, then there was no doubt in my mind that the rest of the old guard that had made it through likely took similar treatments. If the CEO of one of the three major companies was important enough or could afford it, then there was no doubt in my mind the scowlers up at the top could afford such procedures too.

  Or that they were turning humanity's only refuge into a cesspit for their own power, to keep a rotten hand on a society they were driving into the ground for the sake of their long-term power. It disgusted me with every fiber of my being. Our extinction was still looking us in the face, and yet instead of trying to play things even remotely intelligently, they were pulling stupid games for stupid prizes.

  And sadly, I could see why people were falling for it. The conditions on the Ark were frankly, shit. Even for all but the richest of the rich, if you lived on the Ark, you weren't having a good time. The poor on the Outer Rim might as well be only just above Nikke's, but it wasn't by much. What could pass off as a middle class, a term I used rather loosely out of lacking any other better ones, was always on unstable ground. As for the rich? Well, even they weren't immune to being screwed over.

  And that wasn't even touching on the event that had happened a few years back. Reading up on that report had been something out of a nightmare. I'd never heard of anything like that before. Sure, collective delirium, sure, but this went beyond just collective. It was damn near societal.

  Which was terrifying on its own. Maybe understandable. Outside of those of us who could go outside, it's not like anyone else could experience the actual sky. Even fewer of us knew what the real sky, of what the sky looked like before actually felt like. But for such a mass casualty event to be the end result?

  In short, the Ark was shit. And I doubted it would be able to last much longer as a result. A rotting decaying house was a rotting decaying house. Eventually, everything was going to fall over. And sadly, as per usual, our greatest threats came from within, rather than without. Either through greed, turning a blind eye, or accepting the scapegoat just simply because that was what the government told you? Things couldn't hold for much longer.

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  "Congratulations on your newest team member," Anderson's face was unreadable to me as I stood at attention. Then again, the man had the poker face of a God a good half of the time, so that was to be expected. "Given how she's managed to run into both Chatterbox and a Pilgrim twice, if the report I got was true, she's surely a lucky charm."

  A Pilgrim? I knew about the first one, during my first operation. But a second? Is that how our ass was pulled out of the fire? Then yeah, that was extremely lucky. Or possibly not. My theory about the first time wasn't even that they intended to bail me out. It was that they had been hunting Chatterbox and I just got lucky to be heading their way.

  I really should have read that report. I really should have taken what little free time I had to figure out what went down after I passed out.

  Though, I could tell where this was going. Anderson did have a fascination with Pilgrim's, Nikke's that wandered the surface. Either because they were banished, or because they simply chose to leave. And there was no doubt this was a Pilgrim, possibly even one of those fairy tale units I'd heard about from time to time. If they could go toe-to-toe with Chatterbox, then they lived up to their reputation, that was certain.

  I knew Chatterbox was a target of interest for Anderson as well, even though he agreed with my assessment that Chatterbox needed to largely be taken from the board to deny the enemy such an asset during their operations. I knew there was more to it than that, but so long as Chatterbox was dead and not being experimented on by people who had no scientific ethics, or just ethics in general, I was okay with that.

  "Thanks to the description provided, we've been able to track her movements," Anderson continued. As much as we could down here. Then again, knowing what one looked like could at least be a blessing if there were some satellites still up in the air. "She's been heading north. Far north."

  Two things. Where she was going, it was likely she would be on Chatterbox's tail, following him like a bloodhound. The second was, I hated the cold. It was cold and bitter, I always needed blankets, and my chilblains were a pain.

  Wait, I was metal. I didn't have chilblains anymore! Finally, this body had an upside!

  I tuned out Anderson's explanations of Pilgrims. I'd heard it all before. As little as that all was. Pilgrims were something the Ark had scant information on, given the isolated nature and the fact I imagine most Pilgrims weren't exactly friendly with the Ark.

  If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

  The mission itself was straightforward. Get to a research base on the surface, and get the information on this particular Pilgrim, find them, and hope she was in a talking mood. Oh, and willing to spill the beans on Chatterbox.

  And Ingrid had a gift for the Commander, too. Which was nice of her. Seeing the gift left me feeling a bit awkward, given how I was kinda responsible for breaking his arm.

  Sure, everyone agreed that it was better that his arm be broken than Chatterbox taking his head clean off, but I still felt back knowing that I was the one responsible for that. Accident or not.

  Which left one final problem.

  There was no way that place was anything less than locked under every single key imaginable. If there was a place that wasn't the Ark that I'd feel safe in, a lab like that would be it. Guards, automated security systems, the whole nine yards of protection. However, we didn't have a way inside, and we certainly hadn't been given one, either.

  I watched as Anderson left for another meeting, the slightest of smirks on his face, looking at me out of the corner of his eye.

  I hated that look. That was the look that Anderson gave me when he knew something would be involved that I wouldn't like. Someone I didn't like.

  As was becoming disturbingly common, I was thankful for the ability to shut off the parts of my body that governed facial expression.

  Mustang was getting involved.

  Joy.

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  Out of the three CEO's, I'd gotten a peg on two of them. Syuen was a person willing to commit stupid actions in an attempt to reach long and short-term benefits. Ingrid was almost the textbook definition of a military woman. She was stern and harsh, but she was also fair. Mustang? Mustang was a tried and true eccentric. And I didn't say that simply because Mustang did weird things for seemingly no reason.

  It was because everything he did had a reason. Even if that reason wasn't obvious without the benefit of hindsight.

  Which made it so I trusted him the least. Syuen, as much as it pained me to admit it, was something I could trust. In that she would stick to her nature most of the time. Ingrid? Her word was gold. You stayed true to yours, she'd stay true to hers. Something that was abnormal when one was a CEO, but I could at least respect it. Mustang?

  People didn't act like that unless they had an angle they were working, something to exploit further down the line. Or the number of skeletons in their closet was best put as yes, and they were trying to get everyone to not look into said closet by acting harmless and weird.

  Given how Mustang has been in charge of Tetra throughout its existence, showing that he has an acute sense of business acumen? I'm more than willing to bet on the answer of which of the two it was being both. There was no way in hell it was anything but both.

  It was why I wasn't at all surprised when this man showed up and started an improve dance number. And this was our key.

  A dance. Was our key.

  My life had the tonal consistency of a spastic octo-panda. I know what wasn't a real thing, but by this point, I couldn't be bothered to care all that much.

  At least Neon seemed to be entertained, clapping her hands excitedly and wondering where the music was coming from. As for myself? I'd spent enough time around Mustang's antics to not ask such questions. I was already fighting a holding action to preserve what remained of my sanity. I wasn't inviting any more madness in trying to figure out what was going on inside Mustang's head.

  Still, being able to do the entire dance from memory was more than an impressive feat on Commander Johnson's end. It didn't look or sound any less weird, but it was good to know he could memorize things that quickly. And doing it himself should help retain the memory for when we need it.

  Now if I could just keep Neon from constantly giving me the side eye I'd be perfectly fine.

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  For the first time in ages, I felt the snow beneath my feet crunch. It wasn't an unwelcome feeling in the end. It made me feel a bit nostalgic, in a way. Sure, the fog coming out of my mouth wasn't from my real breath, but it was nice to pretend that it was, at least for a few minutes. I never handled the cold particularly well, but it was still nice to experience it every once and a while.

  Still, the place looked as dead as a doornail. Most of the surface looked as if it had been hit with an apocalypse, but here? All the ice and snow made it even look like more of a desolate wasteland. Cars, buildings, planes, I even managed to see an old ship, all emerged haphazardly from the white mess.

  And there was another problem. Nikke's weren't exactly buoyant. We didn't float. What we did do is sink. Like a non-porous rock.

  And there was a lot of ice in this place. Well, there should be. Seriously, there was a semi-modern destroyed destroyer or frigate right there. I refused to believe that we weren't near some large body of water.

  I hoped.

  Oh, who am I kidding? Saltwater had a lower freezing temperature than fresh water, and it was totally in character for the Raptures to have something that could throw a ship of that size several dozen or even hundred miles inland. It'd have to be some ancient Tyrant-class, but there was little doubt in my mind that Raptures had that technology.

  My thoughts were broken suddenly and violently.

  By a snowball, of all things, pelting me in the back of the head.

  I turned around slowly, looking at Anis and Neon. I had no idea how long they'd been having their little snowball fight, but after that, I was well past the point of caring. They'd built up a pretty sizable arsenal between the two of them, even creating little bastions.

  I, of course, acted like a perfectly reasonable adult. I brushed off the back of my head. Looked at the two who seemed to be oblivious to the fact I'd been caught in their crossfire.

  Then my helmet began calculating solutions on how best to hit them back! I was not losing out on this opportunity!

  "Cowabunga it is!"

  "What does that even!"

  Pooof!

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  Well, there went the hope she'd have someone else to wrangle Anis and Neon.

  "It's good that she's having fun," Commander Johnson said, looking at the snowball fight that had been interrupted by Elen's very abrupt entrance.

  Rapi didn't exactly disagree. Even if she didn't think Elen was doing so purely out of enjoyment. She was still uncertain of what to think of her new teammate.

  Elen was generally moody. She had plenty of abnormal quirks, her speech frequently mixed with strange words or phrases that didn't make sense. Rapi could deduce a rough meaning from time to time, but it was hardly consistent, and getting an answer out of Elen could be difficult.

  It could just be slang that transferred over, but she was certain not even children spoke such phrases.

  Then there was what happened with the Commander. Elen had saved his life. And right now Rapi was convinced she was doing so again.

  Rapi had no idea where Elen found all the clothing Commander Johnson was currently bundled in, but it was helping to retain his body temperature nicely. It still was incredibly cold by human standards, but at least exposure related issues would be less of a problem.

  At least Elen had a ghost of a smile on her face. That was a sign things were moving in the right direction. Still, they had a mission to complete.

  "Should I begin breaking them up, sir?" Rapi asked, only for a snowball to hit the side of her head.