━━Calamity¹

nine.

"Where are you going?" Asked Denise.

"To snoop around."

"I'll go with you." Alina stood, picking up her axe.

"Didn't say you could."

"Well, I did."

Dante only grumbled in reply, but complied and led them into the shadow beneath the station's roof where now no guards walked, his steps light while Alina's rang against the cement, but he showed no sign of being bothered by that. They walked in silence, and Alina battled with herself whether to ask him about the glare he directed at Felix at the warehouse or to be quiet in case the question would take him aback and force him to shut down again.

In the end, she decided not to bother about it anymore and put it down to the unpredictable situation that followed them at the warehouse as they reached the main station door and slipped into the scarcely lit blue station and its main lobby with scattered ticket buying counters around the room and a great waiting area in the middle, Walker met them on her way outside.

"Dante, Alina. Pleasure to see you're well." She holstered a comms device and smiled at them, the two sharing an uncertain glance.

"Walker." Dante said with a curt nod.

"Simone tells me you need to leave soon."

"We have another mission to finish." Alina stated, choosing not to refer to any details about the mission - perhaps Simone had said everything already, but if not, she elected not to risk it.

"To Dawn Zero, right?"

Guess that's off the table then. Alina thought back to her reluctance in sharing the details of the mission. "Yes." She said.

"And where are you two going?"

Alina was shocked to find how easily the lie had rolled down her tongue. "To find Simone."

"Well then, don't let me stop you. She's in your room." Walker smiled and went past them, patting Alina's shoulder before she slid through the door and left.

"She gives me the creeps."

Dante laughed feebly, but said nothing and continued down the room into a hall on the left where they climbed a set of rickety metal stairs leading to a spacious hallway with four set of doors on each side. However, Dante passed the second door on the right where Walker had appointed them, and carried onward to the forth one where he tried the door knob.

He leveled himself with the lock and prodding around using one of the shivs he carried while Alina stood by and watched the vacant hallway, straining her ears on whether she would hear someone approach them.

The door clicked open, Dante pulling her inside before sliding it shut behind them - they stood in an office, in its middle a table cluttered with paper, empty shelves pushed to the left wall and crates beneath them. A row of dusty windows through which moonlight glimmered shone ahead of them.

They walked in silence for a while, checking corners and crates, rifling through the stacked papers for any out of ordinary file or sign which could follow up on their secret.

"Anything catch your eye?" Alina asked as she snooped through the shelves littered with maps and notes about Crawler activity.

"I didn't throw it." Dante answered.

Alina snorted, but concealed it with a cough and spoke seriously. "Why do you take everything so literally?"

"It's hilarious." He said, and after a short pause whistled to her.

Alina joined him in the corner of the room where a discarded map laid on a few crates, fading red ink marking a place between the town of Lowlake a long way eastward of the outpost and some kind of facility, probably a chemical lab marked only with three red dots. Beneath that, written in big letters, was a single word - Lieutenant.