Breakthrough

By the sun's light, you're the same – ever-reliable Colby, though what reliable means when it's you is an unordinary number of naps in an unordinary variety of places, and skulking in a rather fetching fashion in places that get you wary double-takes. Still, nobody seems to notice anything truly different – and yet, by the light of the moon, you are transformed, your sights set on a completely new goal.

You have Coerna's word that they'll help you get past what little security the substation has, and, sure enough, the frontmost door is ajar, a weak yellow light spilling out into the grass at your feet. Its hinges wheeze as you push, and you steel yourself for the chance of a confrontation, but the front room is empty. Feeling bold, and lest time trickle away from you, you start your hunt with the shelves lining the walls of the front room. Naomi has not been exaggerating – if the inner sanctum of the infirmary is stocked as poorly as the pitiful canned food pile and the few sheafs of greying printer paper that could barely tide an office over a weekend, the medics would have an impossible task should more than a handful of people fall ill or be injured at the same time.

You press on to find what you're looking for, the key Coerna gave you weighing heavily in your pocket. They'd said you'd know what it unlocked when you saw it, whatever that means. Though supplies themselves are low, there seem to be no end to the shelves and cabinets in this room, nor to the little drawers concealed under desk-tops in the next room. An old office, but just barely retaining any semblance – most of the desks are out of use, piled high with rubber cables and rubbery plastic sheets for maintenance, or stationery for writing on paper the Bastion doesn't have, or an unsorted pile of nuts and bolts, or–

You bolt toward the slightest glimmer of white plastic, hoping against hope, and are rewarded. A quadrilateral frame of interlaced rods which, within them, make more quadrilateral shapes. You marvel at its placement, almost in plain sight, and at its craftsmanship, each square within the square wrought near-perfectly. The best work of a cobbler. The best friend of a scientist.

No sooner have you taken the quadrat than you spot something else – one of the desks is less of a storage space than the others, the piston of the wheeled chair broken so it sags low, but nonetheless, the chair left free of supplies so it can actually be sat on. The desk has a small space cleared of debris for work. You approach it cautiously, intrigued less by the desk-top than by the drawer under the table. It calls to you, and you answer it, meeting lock with key.

You twist the wrench back and forth, more frenzied each time, before realising it's not clicking open because it is already unlocked.

Papers. You don't have the time to check them properly through, except for remarking that the contents look so utterly familiar, before you hear footsteps. You dash under the table, banging your head on the underside, clutching your quadrat and documents to your chest. The key falls from your hand, tinkling against the linoleum tiled floor, and you grasp desperately out for it as the footsteps thud closer. Multiple people, from the sounds of it – you recognise Nio's small frame from her legs alone, trembling with pain or anxiety, you can't tell which, and you hear the heavier steps and voices of Loosha, Chris, and Ormina. Before you can reckon with what you're seeing, another shock hits your senses.

A gunshot.

You hear shouting.

The substation goes dark.

[OC NOTE: The papers you have found are these. You now have both a metal quadrat, and the papers you found.]

{[]}