**** Elysium 1986 ****

From his position, he could see the car with the big plastic sausage on the roof coming around the corner. His mind could not process what exactly he saw with his dimly lit eyes. Crouching, he sat in the drainpipe under the curb, holding onto a grate with his bony hands to keep from slipping. He stood barefoot in the viscous broth of filthy water. The stench emanating from it did not bother him. He no longer noticed it. His skin was coal black, covered with cracks and small blisters. Nothing would make him crawl out of his hiding place into the glaring sunlight. It was too bright for him, it hurt his eyes. He was a creature of darkness, born far from the light of the sun. Only when, he had forgotten. It made no difference to him if one or ten years passed. The van stopped in front of the gate, where the two men stood, weapons in their hands. Then they made noises. There were noises coming from the van as well. He did not understand them, could not grasp the meaning of the words. He no longer understood the purpose of language. But now he began to feel hungry. This hunger had to be satisfied, it could not be delayed. He rose as far as the low height of his observation post would allow and crawled further along the tube, away from the opening at the curb. There was a wider descent to the sewers ahead, he remembered. He would find something edible down there, if he looked long enough. Something that would not escape him. And he was fast, even if one would not have guessed it at first glance. Much faster than anything else that lived down here.

Ralph rolled down the window. Next to him sat Abigail, who had put on her most innocent smile. Luckily, they’d found some Wiener Productions aprons and paper hats in the back of the van and had put them on before they left. Ralph’s haircut would have been a little too flashy for a food delivery guy.
“Well, it’s about time you guys showed up,” the guard standing on the left side of the gate called out to him. “You’re late, you know that, right?”
“Yeah, sorry, a lot of traffic today,” Ralph replied, waving him off, “Now hurry up and open the gate, the hot dogs are waiting for you!” The guard paused for a moment and rubbed his chin.
“Where is Dave today? Yesterday he said goodbye with a see you tomorrow?” the guard inquired. But then he motioned to his colleague, who began to take a larger key from his belt and unlock the gate. Apparently the anticipation of lunch was greater than his growing suspicion. Fortune favors fools.
“He slipped in the bathroom this morning. Nasty business, but he’ll be back on his feet soon. We’re just the replacements, but our sausages are just as hot,” Ralph replied in a calm voice. The guard laughed in response and they pulled open the two gates, allowing the van to slowly drive through. Abigail saw in her rearview mirror that the gate behind them closed immediately.
“We’re in,” she said quietly. “I think we have to go right, this way.” She pointed to a large sign that read Delivery, apparently the only English writing in the area. Below the sign was an arrow. Ralph followed the direction, and the road led them directly to a warehouse. He turned the car around and backed up to a larger, thick steel door, held open by a discolored, thick wooden wedge. Then he tapped on the back wall of the van to signal Harry and Yuri, who were hiding in the back of the van by the food. They, too, were already dressed in the uniforms of the catering company, so as not to be immediately recognized as intruders.
“We’re here,” he said in a low voice. There was a short knock in response. Abigail and Ralph got out to open the back door of the van. Suddenly, a woman in a fancy costume appeared in the large open doorway. The extremely attractive Japanese woman actually looked like she was on her way to a gala reception or a modeling appointment, not back here in a delivery zone waiting for the caterer.
“Here you are at last!” she greeted them with a friendly smile. “We eagerly await the delicious cornucopia of your exquisite dishes!” she spoke with grammatical perfection, though with a slightly audible accent that added to her charming appearance.
“You what?” Ralph replied.
“Sorry for the delay, it definitely won’t happen again,” Abigail said, smiling broadly at the lady. Then she ran her right hand through her hair and adjusted her work coat. The lady in the costume looked at her kindly. Ralph looked back and forth between them for a moment, then just shrugged and opened the back door. Harry and Yuri were already inside, each with a box of packaged food in their hands and one of those slightly humiliating paper hats on their heads. As if on cue, they marched out of the van one by one.
“If you’d brought pickaxes, you’d look like the dwarves on their way to the mountain,” Ralph muttered, then climbed into the van himself to grab a pallet.
“Good afternoon,” Harry greeted the woman in Japanese, noticing out of the corner of his eye that a security camera was focused on the delivery area. He would have to keep that in mind. “Where do we put the food? We’re a new team and we’re delivering to you for the first time today, so we don’t know our way around yet.” The lady was clearly surprised to be spoken to in her native language. She had usually only seen American employees in the delivery company. Visibly pleased, she then showed the four of them the way to the cafeteria.

Word of the food delivery spread like wildfire among the staff, and the cafeteria was filled to capacity in no time. Ralph scooped up plate after plate like a madman, and the room filled with the sounds of food and conversation as the other three TRAP members brought in all the food from the truck as fast as they could. When all the pallets and packages were stacked in the serving area, they nodded to Ralph and retreated. There was no time to waste. First they made their way back to the transporter, but then they took another turn and found themselves in the main production hall. Here, highly complex machines and larger tools for a variety of applications were being made at the well-equipped workbenches. Abigail could identify some of the machines by their appearance, but others meant nothing to her. The Japanese lettering didn’t make it any easier for her to find her way around. Fortunately, Harry was able to quickly translate the most important things for her when needed. At least there were no security cameras in this area, otherwise they would have been in serious trouble.
“Well, I don’t see an oversized laser here. And I don’t see any industrial car-making robots either,” she whispered to the others.
“Fucking hell,” Yuri grunted. “Did we break into wrong branch after all?” Harry looked around feverishly. The hall was relatively easy to see from where they were, despite all the large equipment. In addition, a staircase on the side wall led up one floor to an office suite. Harry squinted, trying to make out the signs. There was certainly a good view of the entire production area from these offices.
“The first room up there is for the foreman, the others just say administration,” he read aloud.
“Should we break in there?” asked Yuri.
“Not sure we have enough time for that,” Abigail said, looking nervously at her watch. “If the staff is on a three-quarter lunch break, which I can only hope they are, that still leaves us…. thirty-eight minutes?”
“Over there, look, there’s an elevator,” Harry said suddenly. At first he had thought the door was just a cupboard or something, since there was no symbol or inscription to identify it as an elevator. But now that the three of them had taken a few steps closer, he had spotted a small button in the shape of an arrow pointing down. They hurried over and examined this door.
“An elevator? But stairs over there?” said Yuri, looking back. There was no way the elevator could go up, only down.
“A basement under the production hall? A basement without stairs, accessible only by elevator? Isn’t that a bit risky?” asked Abigail.
“Or it’s part of the concept,” Harry reasoned, tapping an elongated slot built into the panel next to the arrow button. “You probably have to swipe a smart card here to even call the elevator. So there is an area here that is probably not equally accessible to all employees. They’ve got something to hide, and that’s damn good news for us.” Abigail glanced at the panel and spotted a port for a modular connector. Quickly, she pulled down her backpack and pulled out the mini-laptop and a phone cord. She plugged the laptop into the elevator panel, sat down on the floor, and began furiously tapping away at the keyboard. The other two stared in the direction of the cafeteria. If anyone came now, they were screwed. They would never be able to explain to anyone why sausage delivery workers had to tamper with a security elevator. Yuri’s hand automatically went to the pistol tucked in the back of his pants, as usual. A minute later the elevator doors opened. Harry and Yuri let out audible sighs of relief.
“Honestly, I’m about to pee my pants…” whispered Abigail, sweating. She was still sitting cross-legged on the floor with her laptop on her legs, looking up at the others.
“Told you not to eat so much yogurt,” Yuri whispered back, lifting her up along with the computer before she could protest and carrying her into the elevator, which turned out to be a freight elevator due to its larger interior, while Harry quickly pulled the cable out of the panel slot. The door closed again and the elevator slowly descended.

They had positioned themselves against the wall to the left and right of the elevator doors so that they would not be immediately seen if anyone stood directly on the lower level. The elevator doors opened slowly and Harry peeked around the corner. Once again they were lucky, no one was there. He motioned to the other two and they entered a large room, very different in style from the production hall upstairs. It looked almost like the reception area of a newly built, hypermodern hospital. The floor was white, the walls covered with large light blue tiles. Indirect blue light shone between them, bathing the room in a futuristic, almost surreal atmosphere. In the center stood a spherical projector on the floor, humming softly to itself, projecting into the air above it the three-dimensional orange image of a circuit diagram spinning on its own axis. Doors led out of the room in three different directions. Despite their tension and caution, they couldn’t help but stare at the projector and the image for a few moments. None of them had ever seen anything like it. This thing looked like it came from another world. Finally, the image blurred and changed shape to show a moving joint.
“Absolutely fascinating,” Abigail whispered, and the others nodded in agreement.
“Straight ahead is the Level 1 area…” Harry began to translate as the door on the east side of the room suddenly opened. Yuri and Abigail drew their guns. Harry, on the other hand, drew his sword and immediately ran to the door to shorten the distance to those who were trying to enter the room from there. They were two guards in black uniforms, equipped with submachine guns and vests, just like the gate guards outside. They were followed by a tall blonde woman in a white lab coat with a name tag. When they saw Harry and his comrades coming, they raised their weapons and the woman began to scream. But it was too late, Harry was close enough and spun around in a flash with his sword outstretched. The head of the guard to the woman’s left was ripped from his neck with an incredibly precise cut, landing with a thud on the floor a few feet away as his body fell lifeless. The woman in the lab coat immediately stopped screaming and turned white. The other guard panicked and emptied the entire magazine at once, pulling his gun to the right. Yuri screamed loudly and fell to his knees, while Abigail, for her part, fired all the bullets in her Colt at the firing guard, who fell dead a moment later from a rather accidental shot to the head. Abigail began to shake a little from the tremendous surge of adrenaline coursing through her body. Harry didn’t hesitate for a moment and grabbed the woman, pinning her against the door frame and covering her mouth. He looked back at Yuri, who was struggling to his feet, holding his right shoulder. One of the submachine gun bullets had grazed it, causing a flesh wound. It could have been worse.
“Is there a first aid kit around here?” Harry growled at the woman, slowly removing his hand from her mouth so she could answer.
“Yes,” she said, seeming to regain her composure very quickly. “There are some hanging in the toilets on Level 1. By the way, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t behead me as well, you horrible savage. I’m too intelligent, talented, and attractive to die yet.” She then ran a hand through her blonde mane, placed the other teasingly on her hips, and looked at him with a raised eyebrow.
“She’s right, she pretty hot,” Yuri croaked from behind him, holding his shoulder as Abigail tried to makeshiftly stop his bleeding with the torn sleeve of her catering company smock.
“Oh, thank you,” the lady remarked, then turned to Harry, “See? Your fellow criminal has taste.” Harry looked back and forth between her and Yuri for a moment, then sighed.
“All right, I won’t behead you this time, Ms…” he glanced at her name tag, “Ms. Engineer Dinner. But I might change my mind if you don’t tell us how to get into Level 1.” To punctuate the sentence, he raised his sword, letting the blade rest on his shoulder, and fixed her with a cold stare. The woman dropped her emphatically cool bluff and swallowed.
“All right, so you need a smart card. The area down here is divided into two security levels,” she replied.
“Am I correct in assuming that you have such a smart card?” asked Harry casually, tapping his sword hilt with his index finger.
“I just came from the locker room back there,” she pointed with her thumb toward the room she had come from with the guards. “My office is over there. That’s where my smart card is. You… you’re not going to take me hostage and drag me with you now, are you?” the engineer asked, her eyes widening slightly in horror.
“Hell, yeah!” came again from Yuri, and then there was a small cry of pain as Abigail poked him in the wounded shoulder with her index finger in response.
“Let’s see…” grunted Harry. “First, give me that smart card!” He began to push her towards the office in front of him, his sword demonstratively at the ready to intimidate her. “Not so rough, you scoundrel!” the engineer snorted exuberantly, though he only pushed her against her back with the palm of his hand. Harry rolled his eyes. When the four of them reached her office, her hand went to a drawer in her desk.
“Slow down!” Abigail growled at her, pointing the Colt at Ms. Dinner’s head.
“Y-yes… no worries,” she reassured, opening the drawer in slow motion. Harry looked over her shoulder as she did so. There was no weapon inside, instead she pulled out the announced smart card. She held the card out to Abigail, who took it. “You three are here for the prototype, aren’t you?” she suddenly asked directly. Harry hesitated for a moment.
“Yes,” he answered honestly. Dinner smiled, showing her teeth.
“You have no idea what you’re dealing with here, do you?” she asked again, maintaining her slightly smug grin.
“What do you mean?” asked Abigail, chewing on her lower lip.
“What did they actually tell you three characters to steal here?” came another immediate counter-question. Then the engineer slowly sat down in her office chair.
“Steal? Your company stole the prototype in the first place. We’re just returning it to its rightful owner,” Harry replied.
“Pha… CROWTECH… If the most expensive filet, the finest spices, and the noblest wine happen to fall into my hands, I too can easily prepare a five-star menu. This is no longer an art…”, she spoke contemptuously. The TRAP agents looked at each other in confusion, not knowing how to interpret this answer. But they had already lost too much valuable time. Abigail pondered.
“Move aside,” she snapped at the engineer, pushing the chair away from the desk. Then she opened her backpack and pulled out some floppy disks. She quickly inserted them into the drive of the computer on the desk and began to download as much data as she could. Mrs. Dinner was about to protest when Yuri stood in front of her and shook his head wordlessly, whereupon she crossed her arms in front of her with an angry expression on her face and remained silent. Abigail saved secret files of everything she could find in the short time available, filling five floppy disks.
“Done,” she finally reported.
“Good,” Harry said, lunging with his sword and severing all the cables from the computer in a single slash that sent sparks flying. Yuri nodded, picked up the phone with the hand of his uninjured arm, and ripped the cable from the wall with a mighty yank.
“Keys,” he said to the engineer in a commanding tone.
“You’re not going to lock me in my office, are you? I’ll starve to death if they don’t find me fast enough! Oh, you cruel criminals, have you no heart at all! I’m too attractive to…” she began to scream.
“Yogurt,” Yuri said coolly to Abigail. She grumbled a little, took another jar of her strawberry yogurt out of her backpack and put it on the desk.
“Asshole…” the engineer growled, pulling the key to her office out of her pocket and throwing it at Harry, who had the presence of mind to catch it right in front of his face.
“They’ll find you pretty quickly, I’m sure. Don’t worry,” he said. Then they left her office, locking the door from the outside.
“Damn it, I don’t have a spoon,” they heard the woman’s muffled scream from the room. Harry sighed. Together they walked back to the door with the Level 1 inscription and swiped the chip card through the nearest slot. It worked, the door opened. They crept on, past some offices and a material storage area, and finally came to a pair of toilet doors on the right. A quick examination of the area revealed a first aid kit, and Yuri’s wound was properly bandaged. He disinfected and bandaged himself with amazing skill, briefly explaining to his comrades that he had learned such things in the special military, which the other two acknowledged with impressed nods. A few times they had to hide for a short time to avoid running into more guards. After all, the mission was not to spill as much blood as possible. If they were too brutal, it might come back to haunt them – if they survived this mission. However, if someone found the engineer in her office, they would quickly have a bigger problem. At least no alarm had been triggered yet, and they moved slowly from room to room with the help of the smart card, until they finally stood in front of a door marked Laboratory.
“This must be it, we’re at our destination,” Abigail whispered. Harry nodded, drew his katana and took a deep breath. Yuri also drew his pistol again, this time with his other hand.
“Ready?” asked Yuri.
“Let’s do it,” Harry confirmed, kicking open the door and rushing into the room. His comrades followed close behind.

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