[X] Take Neph's advice and go looking for Shasta in ...
- [X] Hades. There are a lot of mobile suits down that way, more high performance than industrial.
Solitude nudges the Regalia into place on the platform. There's a click and a series of indicator lights flash blue, your doors lock and the hardtop unfolds from the Regalia's rear and seals you in. You're not the only car on the train, almost every single one of the tiered platforms has a vehicle locked in place. There's a series of chimes and then slowly the train begins to roll down the inclined tracks. the smooth girders and panels of the far wall smear as you pick up speed and you can feel the wind rushing over the hood.
There's only the lights on your dash in the dark and you lean on the wheel, humming along to whatever it is that Solitude has
on the radio. The whole car tilts forward as you round an invisible bend and you shy away from a sudden light.
It's been a while since you've seen this cthonic lake of neon, the sered ranks of featureless grave markers. Olympia's guts spread out before you, the computation, the power, the agriculture, locked away in those sealed towers. And between the nerves and arteries of the city countless souls flit about. A reflection of the city above and almost as large. You intend to find Shasta here regardless.
CHAPTER NINE
-HYMN TO ORPHEUS-
"Do you really think you can find one person here?" Solitude asks after parking you outside Styx Station.
"I think I can make a heroic attempt," you reply, organising some photos on your phone. "There are people down here who into high performance mobile suit customisation. Shasta has years of experience working on the Kujata. That's experience that your average revhead would kill for."
"So if you talk to people involved with mobile suits you might get a lead?"
"That's the plan," you say, taking the wheel.
"I don't like this place, Asher," Solitude says. "I'm supposed to drive for you."
"Don't sweat it. I actually like driving, you know?"
"I guess."
"If you're upset about it we can see about getting you some updates so you can operate properly without system assist. Shasta can do that kind of thing as well."
"I can't be upset about it Asher, but I would like that."
The roads here are often narrow, and often not really roads. While Solitude can't handle Hades, there are enough impassive, robotic vehicles to make the main roads an annoyance. You weave around them where you can - the ancilla controlling the underworld's traffic has no concern for how you drive so long as you don't get in the way. It's the kind of entity that could manage the functions of a combat spacecraft and regards you quite rightly like a gnat.
Where you can you roll down alleys so tight that the Regalia's mirrors shy away as you approach. Sometimes you have to nudge you way through malls full of people and their makeshift stores and restaurants. Eventually you find what you're looking for: Rhadamanthine Park. You stand by the door and throw on your parka and look down on it. It's a pit, basically, underneath a highway designed to carry superheavy equipment towards the areas below Hephaestus. Countless shipping containers are arranged around the indestructible pillars holding the roadway up.
People mill around light trucks loading and unloading their mobile suits. They've got the look of customised civilian models, reduced to plated skeletons strung with black muscle, or otherwise armoured up to resemble ancient knights. Most of them move with quickness and grace, but they're almost embarrassingly clumsy compared to the Kujata. Maybe not a fair comparison, but one you can't help but make.
You head on down.
Many of them spare you a glance, but none of them bother with a second. If you don't have a machine then you're not much to write home about. As you approach the main concentration of containers you can hear the percussion of sparring suits, the dopplering wind from their movements. The ground has been vibrating under your feet for a while now but it's practically an earthquake by the time you reach the office. If it bothers the boyish guy behind the desk then it doesn't show. He just wraps his bubble gum around one finger while scrawling on his tablet.
This one spares you a second glance but quickly hides it.
"Sup?" he asks as everything on his desk slides back and forth.
[ ] Come clean: show him a photo of Shasta and ask if he knows anything.
[ ] Be cagey: claim you're a potential contender with a hot new machine looking for a hot new mechanic.
[ ] Investigate: ask for some info on the best performing teams and whether there's anything up with the performance of their mobile suits.
[ ] Lay on the charm: he's not exactly your type of guy but you appear to be his.
