Chapter 382: We Robbed the People Selling Our Near-Death Experience

The rescue package cost more if somebody cried on camera, which made me close the file for a moment and consider how many unpleasant ways a white suit could become difficult to clean.

Lukas kept driving while I copied the route plan from the console. The production yard lay several days farther across Glasswake, but a smaller relay depot sat beside the road we already needed to use.

Its service schedule showed an overnight gap between the last upload and the morning collection. That gave us a useful target before we went anywhere near Rex’s armed convoy.

[System: Eighteen thousand EXP and sixty IP for the original recordings and a working broadcast core, mate. Separate job from dropping the show pony on his arse, so don’t invoice me twice because you enjoyed the paperwork.]

I intended to invoice Rex, although I doubted his accounts department offered a broken-kneecap category.

We spent the next two days traveling between staffed water stops, keeping the crawler covered when we parked. Grit rattled against the windows, and the black stone beside the road broke into sharp flakes wherever freight tires left the maintained track.

The console’s map marked closed salvage pits and places where heavy vehicles had sunk through old fill. Lukas followed the safe lane while I changed my dressing and learned that healing was mostly waiting without doing the thing that made waiting necessary.

At a roadside clinic, a medic checked the wing and replaced the dressing for ninety credits. He said the edge was closing properly, then looked at the dust on us and asked whether our idea of rest involved chasing construction equipment.

Lukas answered before I could lie. The medic charged nothing extra for the expression he gave me, which seemed generous under the circumstances.

We reached the relay depot after sunset and parked in a screened service recess marked on the console. Its maintenance van had already left, matching the schedule, and the yard lights showed three empty loading bays.

I watched the windows with thermal vision while Lukas checked the route back. Nobody moved inside the small office. The equipment room held warm machinery, but no human-shaped heat signatures that I could identify through the open ventilation slats.

We still knocked before forcing the service latch, because an empty schedule wasn’t proof that nobody had stayed late to ruin our night.

Nobody answered. Lukas opened the latch with the workshop tools we had bought, and I slid through first, keeping low beneath the visible camera in the corner.

The camera’s cable ran to a local recorder beside the door. Lukas disconnected it after photographing the connection, leaving the stored footage intact while we worked out whether it had already sent anything elsewhere.

We couldn’t prove it hadn’t. That made speed useful without turning it into an excuse to run blindly into the next room.

The broadcast core sat in a padded rack beside a screen showing queued uploads. A maintenance card explained the safe shutdown sequence, and Lukas followed it while I checked the shelves for original storage cartridges.

Rex had kept everything.

The diner release appeared under a cheerful breakfast title. The freight timer had its own folder, including a message instructing the handler to conceal the second release control from ordinary rail staff.

Older clips showed a collapsed footbridge, a warehouse fire and a trapped delivery crew, each paired with setup instructions and a planned heroic arrival.

I copied the directory with its dates intact before touching the cartridges. People could call one recording a trick. A whole matching filing system required more imaginative excuses.

Then I found the toy shelf.

A small red snake with tiny black wings lay inside a clear display box, its face molded into an expression of cheerful cooperation I had never approved. The packaging called it the OFFICIAL RATTLE RESCUE NOODLE and claimed a portion of proceeds supported roadside safety.

My lie detector couldn’t judge printed advertising, but my entire personality had several objections.

"He made my wings smaller, Lukas, and that felt deliberate."

"Maybe the larger version cost extra."

[System: Mate, they’ve given you travel-sized dignity. Look at that miserable little fruit bat, and tell me you don’t want to bite the factory.]

I took one boxed toy as evidence and left the rest stacked beside the original recordings. I wanted to burn them, but destroying proof because a doll had insulted my proportions seemed like the sort of decision Rex could sell successfully.

Lukas detached the broadcast core after its shutdown light turned green. It was a real piece of equipment with weight and cables, so we carried it together to the crawler instead of pretending Mine Now came with a magical luggage compartment.

A shipping note beside the toys listed the mold supplier and Rex’s approval. Lukas photographed it for me, because a man deserved to know exactly who had decided his backside belonged in a gift shop.

We took the original cartridges, copied the labels and left the empty rack visible. The depot could report a theft. It could also explain why the stolen material contained instructions for endangering paying customers.

At the next sheltered stop, Lukas connected the core to its own test socket using the maintenance lead. The unit started cleanly and recognized the cartridges, giving us working equipment rather than an expensive box we hoped would become useful later.

Old Mate cleared the objective. Seventy thousand EXP and six hundred eighty-five IP sat on my display while the newest recording loaded.

It showed the worker settlement from above, with temporary emergency signs already set along the streets. A rehearsal arrow led residents toward a dry wash beyond the last homes, supposedly away from the danger.

Lukas compared it with the cage-release map from the console. The arrows ended in the same fenced strip where Rex planned to unload the creatures.

On the recording, a crew member asked whether the residents would notice the blocked exit.

Rex’s voice answered from off camera, telling him not to worry because panic always made people follow a bright sign.