Chapter Text
"The Under Depths have a tunnel system,” Julie’s voice purrs from the other side of the rec room.
"What?" Dutch and Mike chorus, pausing their videogame to look up at her. She glances over from where she’s curled on the couch across the room, eyebrows raising as she realizes she managed to catch their attention.
"The Under Depths have a tunnel system," she repeats, not without a fond eye roll, and expands her yellow screen for the two to see. The boys set aside their controllers and lean forward, squinting at the pixelated map of tunnels laid out like an ant farm. “These are some of the blueprints. When Kane made the dome, he created the Under Depths to harbor all the electrical systems, so there's an insane amount of hardware inside of the walls— old servers, live data from the Deluxian intranet, you name it.”
Mike has been to the Under Depths before, when he had to find a new power core after the Southwest Gate failed. Inside, the Under Depths crackled with electricity, lit up by glowing cables and sparks so that Mike didn’t even have to use his screens for light, and below that was a landscape full of mushrooms, mutant rats, and buildings from way before the Burners’ time. Before he went, Julie and Dutch both made sure it was nailed to his forehead how dangerous the place was, that if he so much as put a fingertip on the walls that he’d be fried before he could blink. But, apparently it’s a pretty cool place!
"What about the Motorcity intranet?" Mike asks curiously. It seems as though Julie has zoomed in on only a section of the map, considering the tunnels must run all over.
Julie dismisses the idea with a wave. "The Motorcity intranet wasn't built into the actual dome. If it even is in the Depths, the Motorcity intranet is probably somewhere much shallower since it was made by the Motorcitizens."
"Or probably somewhere above ground," wonders Dutch aloud, holding his chin thoughtfully. "Gosh, dunno where the technical facility would be though."
"Definitely nowhere public," chuckles Julie, "or else The Duke would have taken it over to broadcast ads."
"The Duke's face," laughs Dutch, holding out his hands as he gestures broadly, like he's imagining one of his paintings, " everywhere . No one uses the intranet ever again." Mike grins at the goofy idea.
"Every time Texas goes to watch movies, a mandatory Duke of Detroit ad plays," nods Julie sagely.
For a good half hour, the three banter about the complete chaos the Duke would bring if he took over the intranet. Dutch complains about overstimulation for a long few minutes with Julie agreeing almost mournfully with him. Mike doesn’t get that kind of stuff, but he doesn’t use the intranet much anyways— that’s Julie and Dutch’s thing; Mike and Texas just make it work! At some point, Mike dozes off. He doesn’t remember how, exactly, but suddenly he’s in his own head with a concentrated pinch in his brow, chin resting in his palm.
The Burners are a perfect team of four, but they somehow always fall short when it comes to fighting Kane. Something is off , in the grand scheme of things, and it bugs him every time a bot is just a little harder to beat, or one of Kane’s new weapons are a little tougher than the gang was expecting. Mike isn’t really sure what that something is, but he just feels it . The HOUNDs were a challenge, and Mike almost blew up Detroit until Julie slapped some sense into him (literally), the Climator went okay, but Mike was sick with a cold for a week after and Mutt’s computers were fried from the lightning, Dutch saved everyone’s butts during Kane’s plague, and the Burners ended up having to shoot up one of the Cabler’s oil tanks up in the KMG…
For some reason— and Mike has been trying to put his finger on this ever since he first noticed— every battle feels like it takes three extra steps to win.
The light-hearted conversation goes along without Mike as he stews on that for a while, distractedly tapping his fingers against his bicep. He’s brought up the issue with Julie, and that just ended up with her working harder upstairs, and it has worked! It really has, but it just warns them of the issue earlier, or she manages to snag a prototype of whatever Kane is working on.
In the end, they’re still overwhelmed. Julie is working harder, Texas has been coming up with powerhouse ideas that Dutch can make into something, so Dutch has been building better weapons, albeit wackier.
His mind trails back to the topic now, and Mike doesn’t realize how perfect the opportunity is until a brilliant idea pops into his head.
“Hey, Jules?”
“Yeah, Cowboy?” Julie asks, still smiling after something Dutch said that’s been totally missed by Mike.
“So, what are the tunnels like? I’ve been to the Under Depths before, and it’s crazy dangerous.”
“So, it’s apparently like… suspended bridges. The cables break apart like caverns, and there are even rooms inside, which is where they keep all the juicy stuff.”
“Okay, so could we use any of the stuff down there?” He asks, nodding up at the blueprints.
Julie thinks on that, humming as she stares at her screen. “Yeah… Yeah, we could. The mainframes are old enough that most of them are probably dead or fried, and they aren’t called ‘iron boxes’ for no reason.”
“You could pull scrap off them,” suggests Dutch, a familiar smirk slowly spreading across his face that means I could use tha t, and Mike is all for getting his buddy something he can use. “Spare parts.”
“And no one is down there?” Mike grins, feeling himself begin to buzz with anticipation.
“Not unless they’ve gone spelunking,” Julie shrugs, tapping through other parts of the blueprints. The map is on separate pages, dang. “And even then, there’s no organic resources down there, so it’s impossible to live in there unless you want to constantly be coming back up to Motorcity, and the routes seem pretty tough to get through. Before the dome was finished, they started implementing the same kinds of electrical cables they used at the Keystone, and those are really heavy.”
“Ohh, yeah,” grimaces Dutch. “I bet they used all the different sizes down there, too— to distribute power.”
“So, we’re built on a power hub.” Mike asks, a smile growing on his face. “You said that the Deluxe intranet is down there too, right?”
“Yeah,” says Julie, narrowing her eyes as she tries to read his mind. “Kane Co. monitors the signals, but every broadcast from Kane comes from the tower’s communication center and has to hit the Under Depth’s facilities before being distributed to Motorcity…” Her eyes widen as it clicks, and Dutch makes a loud noise of realization, his head whipping around to stare wide-eyed at Mike. “You want to be able to access those transmissions?”
“And we could get inside!” Dutch gasps, flapping his hand toward Julie like he wants her to be taking notes. “Follow the transmissions back into Deluxe!”
“We could get inside the communication hub in Kane Co. tower,” mutters Julie, and she pulls up another yellow screen, writing notes on it with her nail.
Dutch rubs at his temples, willing ideas into his head, and says, “If we could get into that network and then follow it back up to Deluxe…”
“Then we could spy on all of Kane’s transmissions and comms!” Julie gasps, giving the two boys the brightest smile Mike has seen her give them in a while. “We would have an inside ear to things as they’re happening— and not just predict it, know it! I wouldn’t be so pressured getting you the information!”
Mike is already planning the trip in his head. He needs to ask Julie for the blueprints to help him navigate, and then he needs to grab his bags and get ready for some underground hiking! Dutch and Julie are still talking over him as he plans what to bring, and this is exciting . This might be exactly what they needed to get the upper hand! Julie has already been a phenomenal inside connection, but she can only do so much and she’s human. This could update the Burners on everything .
They could beat Kane with this.
“I can go out now,” Mike says, standing up and bouncing on his toes. “Jules, send me those maps! Is there anything super specific I need, or can I just—”
“Mike,” Dutch says patiently, “it’s almost dinnertime.”
Mike blinks, dumbfounded, and stops bouncing. “So?”
Julie snorts and smiles sweetly at Mike, amused. “Cowboy, the tunnels go for miles. If you want to go cable diving, then you should head out in the morning. Dutch and I would need to make sure you’d be prepared for anything down there, too. The tunnels can be pretty tight.”
“I’m good with tight!” Mike grins, beginning to hop on his toes again. It’s only when Dutch and Julie stifle little giggles that Mike realizes his mistake and sighs, closing his eyes with acceptance, “Okay, okay, I fell into that one.”
“Okay, but seriously, man,” sighs Dutch, “we don’t know what’s down there, and if it’s as narrow and crowded as Julie says it is, then there’s a pretty good chance you could get hurt if you slip up.”
“If you’re going, you’re going alone on this one,” Julie explains, flicking her head to the map. “One wrong step and it can be bad, and it’ll only be worse with more people.”
Dutch huffs and crosses his arms with a distracted furrow in his brow, frowning at the floor. “So I won’t be able to come.”
“Exactly,” Julie says with a sympathetic smile. “Sorry. Plus, as deep as those tunnels go and as much electrical energy is there, I don’t even know if you can contact us if you get lost.
“I would need to make you something that can help you find your way back,” Dutch mutters and grabs for his sketchbook where it lays on a nearby coffee table.
“Not to mention, I have to be in Deluxe all day tomorrow,” Julie adds. “Dutch, Texas, and Jacob will be your only lines of communication, if you can contact them at all down there.”
Okay, that’s a lot of very good points to why he’s not packing to leave right this minute. Mike shrugs unevenly, nodding, that’s fair . “Okay, so I’ll have the maps, Dutch’ll get me something so I don’t get lost, I can just wear my usual clothes…”
Everyone falls thoughtfully silent, staring off into different parts of the room.
“Honestly, you should probably wear something a little more form fitting,” Julie says eventually. “I don’t want you to fall somewhere just because your jacket snagged on a loose pole or something.”
As much as it pains Mike to leave behind his trademark jacket, he nods.
Dutch taps at his chin, eyes still unfocused, before asking, “How are we going to access the link from way down there?”
“You and I can work on that tonight,” Julie hums, “I have to get back up to Deluxe, but I’ll call you when I’m home.”
“Looks like it’s gonna be a long night for us,” chuckles Dutch. “Good thing I already planned on staying up late.”
“Cool!” Mike grins, clapping his hands, “So, I’ll be out tomorrow?”
“Yep!” Julie stands and dusts off her pants. “I’m gonna go ahead and head up now. Dutch, here are the maps—” and she sends him the documents with a swipe of her hand, a little purple screen blips open in front of Dutch, out of reach from Mike like the screen thinks he may grab at it. Mike wouldn’t, but he is looking forward to what’s to come. “We’ll figure out everything tonight. Hopefully by tomorrow, Mike will be out parading through cables like the mad man he is.”
“Safely,” Dutch adds severely, giving Mike a look with a capital L.
“Yes,” Julie agrees and rounds on him with a finger. “If you touch anything, you could die! Unless the cables are very clearly inactive, DO NOT TOUCH! You will literally be cooked. Got it?”
“Got it,” Mike beams, giving them both two thumbs up.
Julie bids them goodnight and piles herself into Nine Lives shortly after that. Mike walks her out, but Dutch is gone when he heads back to the rec room, sketchbook taken, so Mike decides that he probably needs to focus now that they have a mission on their hands.
After eating, buzzing around the hideout excitedly, and eventually resigning himself to a cold shower, it’s 19:07 and Mike clambers in bed, forcing himself to fall asleep before the big day.
Noon is rolling around by the time Mike and Dutch make it to the far edge of an abandoned complex, stationed far into the Depths of Motorcity, beyond the looming emptiness and deadly falls. The building is pressed snug against a wall craning up back toward Motorcity, and Julie assures them that the entrance to the Under Depths is in the basement of the facility. As they park, she makes Mike and Dutch promise to let her know when they’re back home safe before she’s ending the call, probably to go do something involving her internship. By the longing look in her eyes as she hangs up, Mike can tell she’d much rather be finding out what’s in the tunnels with them. He feels for her, but she’s gotta do what she’s gotta do, and he can fill her in on the details later. Maybe he’ll take a few pictures!
Turns out, even though the two forbade Mike from wearing his jacket into the Under Depths, Dutch hands him a very cozy, dark brown bomber jacket that fits close enough to form that it won’t snag on anything, and also keep Mike from feeling naked.
“I actually really like this,” Mike says as he twists, trying to get a look at the green and black Burner logo patched into the back.
“Good, it’s yours!” Dutch hums, ignoring the wide-eyed look of surprise Mike gives him, “Happy early birthday!”
Mike’s eyebrows rise into his hairline. “How do you even—”
“No questions!” Dutch cuts in, snapping his fingers like it’ll make Mike magically shut up. It does. Mike’s mouth clicks closed, amused. “I have my sources, especially a girl whose last name begins with the letter ‘K’.”
“Kapulsky,” grumbles Mike with no real malice, narrowing his eyes with the twitch of a smile. “Of course. She ratted me out.”
“I ain’t no snitch,” snickers Dutch, as he totally snitches, and claps Mike on the back. “Looks good on you, man.”
“I really like it! Thank you,” Mike bumps his hip into Dutch’s with a grin and pockets the chrome skull of his spark staff. “Are we ready?”
Dutch shakes his head and turns back to Whiptail, “I got one last thing for you.”
Waiting for him, Mike looks over the building. The facility itself is pretty ramshackle. Every window is broken and a strange moss grows up the side, unkempt and long abandoned. Mike is surprised that it isn’t a mutant rat nest at this point, but considering the place is this deep in the Depths, maybe it’s not such a surprise after all.
“Here,” says Dutch, hands Mike some kind of hard drive and wire. “Plug this into the main server when you get there. I sent you instructions just in case. I made sure it downloads itself so you don't have to figure out how to upload all of it by yourself; just wait for it to download, and you're home free."
“Nice,” hums Mike, pockets the hard drive, and pats it securely, certain it’s safe.
Satisfied and sure they’re ready, the two approach the building. The front doors have been torn off the hinges, broken, and cast aside in the empty lobby, but Dutch strides in, unconcerned and already pulling up his screens to lighten up the dark walls. Inside, the lobby has been stripped bare, the remains of ruined, useless papers scattered around and a front desk the only signs marking it was ever a lobby to begin with. Two hallways flank the desk. Dutch immediately takes the one on the right, motioning for Mike to follow, and beelines to the door across from some ancient elevator. That door is banged up too, handle-knob crooked, and a mutant rat hole is chewed through the bottom corner of the fake wood. Dutch hesitates when he sees the hole, whispers a miniature prayer of “please no rats,” and turns the knob. With a simultaneous sigh of relief, only an empty stairwell waits for them inside, creaking with a thousand years of sitting in the stale Motorcity air. The trip to the basement is a few, uneventful twists of sub-levels. Waiting at the bottom is a small clearing, only big enough to stand clear of where a heavy metal door opens.
The metal door has been dented, half ripped from the frame, and shoved to make way of whatever came through, black scratches on the outer frame and going inside. Mike furrows his brow, and even Dutch, who has seemed pretty darn confident with the layout of the place, hesitates.
“Weird,” mutters Mike, running a hand down the warped metal as they pass.
“Probably some kind of weapon,” says Dutch, head twisting up to examine the shredded frame in a glance. “Maybe someone wanted to get down here."
Mike’s fingers brush against the waves of a huge, sharp dent in the center of the metal, four, close divots that remind Mike of a fist. “Mhm, a weapon…”
Stepping away from the metal door, Mike looks around the place. Unlike the lobby, most of the stuff down in the last floor of the basement is unbothered, other than the floor still littered with discarded papers. Rows of metal desks line the sides of the room, old boxes with screens in them on each side, and a control panel on one side of the room facing an opening on the other. The arching gate on the end of the room is broken and warped inward, a familiar sight but much bigger than whatever assaulted the door to the chamber. Through the warp, the familiar, dimly-lit insides of the Under Depths crackles, suspended panel sheets walking down like a floating hallway, safely above the cables and big enough for a human to walk on, a hand railing on either side.
That’s where Mike needs to go. He wonders vaguely if it’ll swing when he walks on it. That could be fun!
“Alright,” Dutch frowns— Mike doesn’t miss the suspicious glower Dutch gives the broken gate— and pulls up his screens, “c’mere Mike.” Mike steps over, instinctively pulling out his own screens, and watches as Dutch sends him a few documents. “This is the map. I won’t be able to contact you inside because of the electrical interference. Seriously, call me when you either make it to the other side or get back here. I marked your go-to route and an alternative on Julie’s map, starting with this facility. Be careful.”
“I will,” says Mike sincerely, opening the map with a smile. “Thanks, Dutch.”
“No sweat,” replies Dutch, sweating a little, and claps Mike reassuringly on the shoulder with a quick glance at the ruined gates. “Uh, for real though, it’s… stupid dangerous in there.”
“I know. I’ll be fine,” affirms Mike with a nod, patting the hand on his shoulder. “I’ll call you when I’m out, yeah?”
Inside the tunnels is almost terrifying. Not that Mike would say that, because it’s also very cool and he pretty much loves it here, now. He’s snapped a few pictures of the tunnels and cables to bring back for the Burners, just to show off where he’s been, share the cool things he’s seen. He would never bring them down here himself, but it’s still a cool place to see!
Electricity crackles across the wires and cables in thick streams and coils, tunneling and curving around the thin catwalk where he steps, like a river below a bridge… if that river also went up and over, that is. It’s all just wide enough to be cavernous, clear and gorgeous, the occasional cable stringing and curving down so that he has to duck. He’s seen a bigger version of this— except, that was heading down, and the place almost collapsed on top of him. (The power core was super worth it, though!)
Mike can’t help but gawk, wandering and entranced. Tripping over a little rim in the walkway brings his brain back to his body with an embarrassing squeak, catching his stumble, and finally looks forward to notice the path ahead rolling downward, heading deeper and lower into the Under Depths. Another, smaller path splits sharply off to the right and heads into a smaller tunnel, short enough that Mike may have to hunch if that’s where he needs to go. With a flick of his hand, he summons his holoscreens and pulls up Dutch’s map, eternally grateful for the meticulous observation of his friends as soon as he sees a bright red line drawn on the paths. With a quick skim, smiling, he pinpoints where he came in, where he’s come— which just so happens to be straight along the red line drawn, much to Mike’s delight— and he starts trudging down the faint slope, ignoring the side path.
The walk through the Under Depths is a long one. The map had been split into pages so Mike has to flip through it like an online book file, something that couldn’t be helped and… is frankly a pain, but he’s got this! Dutch ordered it so that Mike can just flick and follow the line easily, one page after another of his directions clumped together. He heads straight for a long, long time, turning on the occasional splitting path, heading further and further into the labyrinth of cables, before his directions get complicated.
Soon, he’s taking a right, where the tunnels start to duck in on itself. Stray cables and crackling wires hang closer to Mike’s head then he’d feel completely comfortable being near at full height, so he keeps his head down and a hand on the railing to stay steady. On the smaller paths, the catwalk actually does sway a little under Mike’s weight, but the thought of that possibly being fun are diminishing now that the tunnels are narrower, the occasional sparks of electricity snapping across the cables more intimidating up close.
He passes over a dip in the cables below and scrunches his nose at a foul smell, like something rancid burning. Glancing down, he stops with wide eyes, catching sight of the charred bones of what was once a mutant rat, lying and buzzing in the cables, sparks still snapping off the ribs, cracking the bones with sharp pops.
“Poor guy,” Mike mutters, lips twisting, and keeps moving. At least he knows what will happen if he rocks the catwalk too much.
Mike takes a left, then a right, then two lefts, and wonders how many more different turns he’ll be taking when he takes another right and stops. Cables from above coat the path ahead, draped down and hiding the way forward like a well-placed obstacle of gray vines. Mike hisses through his teeth and frowns, examining the cables and glancing down at his map. He needs to go that way.
But, these cables don’t look like their neighbors, no cyan lights glowing inside to let a passerby know they’re active, no sparks whipping across the cables that have been cut or dislodged, their circuitry open for the world and deadly upon touch… The cables in front of Mike are quiet, though. They’re inactive and dulled, and don’t seem to be that thick to traverse through…
Carefully, Mike reaches out and pushes one half of the cable curtain aside. They part easily for him, with more inactive cables hiding behind them, but he can handle that! He can keep moving forward. Mike pushes into the mass, pushing them apart to keep an eye out for any active cables, and grins, “This is actually really coo—”
He takes a step, and there is no catwalk under his boot. Nothing stops him from falling forward into the cables with a yell, hands grabbing for anything to hold onto, to pull himself back up—
Mike hisses as his hand rips across shredded metal, twists and grunts as one cable twists his leg and another hits his stomach, springging under his weight, and he slips right back off it. He falls, tugged and turned in every direction by every bundle of cables that catches and drops him, grunting as his arm is grabbed and released. All in a flurry, Mike is flipped into a somersault by another cable, hits his already-stinging hand against something hard, and shouts as the cables snag under his back and twirl him onto his belly—
… The falling stops.
Mike must have closed his eyes. He lets his eyelashes flutter open, the white lights disappearing and eyes adjusting to the dark. One arm shields his face as he heaves through his adrenaline rush, breathing hard and shaky and slower than the tempo of his heartbeat pounding in his ears, straining to push a cable away. He’s in some kind of vertical tunnel, staring down at a floor that’s so dark he can’t see the bottom, only a looping hole of cables as they plummet their way into shadows for who knows how long. He glances over his shoulder, searching for the ceiling, but it’s an identical void, crawling up into darkness. Electricity pops around him, along the living cable walls, held up by the dim wires that wrap around and hold him like vines—
And Mike can’t move. He bends his legs to pull them away, and the cables hold him steadfast. He pulls at his outstretched arm, hisses when his palm burns, and the cables constrict painfully. He reaches out to try and free his trapped arm with his free hand and gasps when the cable that arm was just pushing on lifts up and against his neck, holding itself there like a threat. He goes to try to pull that cable away, and the thick cable around his midsection tightens. He glances over his shoulder again: three cables around his legs, one around his thigh, two around his right arm, one around his chest, one against his neck, and he’s stuck.
Thoughts racing, Mike flicks open his comms and dials his Burners, only to receive a harsh sound of static that makes him startle, and a giant, red exclamation mark makes itself known on his screen in flashes. He winces away from the noise and immediately ends the call, doused back into silence, aside from the gentle creak of the dead cables gently rocking him and the shivering hiss of electricity along the walls. He can’t call anyone— Dutch already told him that.
He’s stuck, and he’s alone.
Mike stares down into the darkness and finally runs out of ideas. Opening his screens, he glances at the time. Thirty minutes since he was first trapped.
He turns his brightness all the way up and pushes the screen down, eyebrows rising as he realizes he can see the faint shadow of the ground. If he can somehow get out of the cables, he can drop down there relatively safely. A red glint catches the corner of his eye, half hidden by a few active, sparking cables. Wheezing a little as he maneuvers the screen over, Mike squints, trying to get a good look at whatever is reflecting, and freezes.
An Ultra Elite helmet lays in the dirt, ownerless, a splatter of dried blood across the front. His heartbeat skips a beat and steadily begins to race, adrenaline and something like fear boiling in his gut.
Mike snaps a picture.
Swallowing down nausea, he flicks the screens away and hangs aimlessly. His snared hand in the cables still hurts, a ticklish trickle of something wet bleeding into the snug cuff of the jacket Dutch gave him.
The Burners may never see him again, he realizes with a tense knot in his stomach. If he can’t get out, he’ll rot here. He can’t call anyone to help him, and a part of him wouldn’t want them down here in the first place— not with random paths dropping off into death pits. Maybe the cables will turn back on and he’ll look like the mutant rat he saw, charred bones at the bottom of a pit where no one will find them again.
Or, well, Mike found the rat, but something in his gut tells him that no one will tread far enough to discover wherever Mike’s bones would land.
… Maybe he’ll turn out like the Elite.
He dreads this. He can’t bring himself to cry. If anything, it would be just like if no one had caught him when Kane threw him off Kane Co. tower… He would be gone, Julie would lead, and Kane would be happy, but Motorcity would still be safe. That’s the only thought that keeps Mike from blindly tearing at the cables. If he can, he needs to get out.
If he can’t, Motorcity is in good hands.
With a deep, trembling breath in, Mike closes his eyes and focuses on calming down. He’ll think better with a clear head, and when he stops shaking so badly—
The cables above him strain with an echoing noise, swaying and jingling against each other. Mike jumps, eyes snapping open, stares down and around, tries to look over his shoulder and see whatever is making the cables move like that. The tangle he’s caught in is thick enough that he can hardly see the cable walls around him, only their internal glow to distinguish them from the others. Mike keeps his breathing steady and tense, staring sideways at the swinging cables... until everything begins to still. The sudden onslaught of sound becomes quiet as the cables sway a little more gently, and Mike can’t help but be grateful for the growing silence— whatever did that is gone, he thinks for a brief moment— when he hears a soft, high voice speak somewhere near him, out of his line of sight.
“... You’re not an Ultra Elite,” it says, light and puzzled.
Mike freezes, heart racing, and breathlessly replies, “... What?"
“Oh, uh, here, let me—”
Two hands scoop under Mike’s arms, bracing his chest and gently lifting him without tugging on any of his restraints. The cables all fall loose around him, slipping off and away, and Mike feels like he can take a deep breath again. The grip lifts him up and up, and Mike tries his best not to squirm, unable to help but cling to his rescuer’s arms and finally breathe out tremors until he’s shaking and struggling to keep his breath even purely out of nerves, adrenaline building up and burning all over again. Someone found him, someone is helping him.
“Hold on! I got you, I got you,” the stranger soothes, a worried prickle in their voice. “You’re going to be alright. I, uh, here, you probably want to be on solid ground…”
“Yeah!” Mike nods enthusiastically, breathlessly grateful, “Yeah! I definitely would—”
“Okay,” says the stranger, sounding one part startled, another part amused, “I’ll get you there, hang on.”
Mike hangs on, keeps his grip tight on the hold around him. His right hand aches, but it seems trivial compared to the way the cables move in front of him, lifted up by his savior with complete ease, like Mike is barely a paperweight. The arms and hands on him feel so skinny too, so… huh. Mike’s brain has no good explanation for that.
When he looks down, he sees pale, freckled hands gripping his chest securely, and a vague thought in the back of his brain tells him he feels like a stray kitten being picked up off the streets. It almost makes him chuckle, until the voice above him says, “Okay, hold on—” and Mike glances up again, sees a dark tunnel directly ahead that looks more like a vent than the catwalk Mike walked in on, and barely gets to tilt his head before the two shoot into the tunnel at a speed that makes Mike actually yelp with surprise.
It’s hardly six seconds of moving so fast in such a small space— Mike can’t even manage to make out the cables on the wall— before the tunnel splits open into a huge, dark, circular room, walls still pelted with cables like the rest of the Under Depths. Mike is dropped onto the metal floor with an unceremonious flail and lands flat on his back with a loud BANG.
…
“Augh…” Mike hisses, wrinkling his nose, and opts to just… yeah, he can just lie here for a second, being sore and bruised. It’s cool.
The far ceiling is pitch black, but there are cyan ghost lights along the floor, and he can make out the distant shape of… rafters? It looks kind of like the top of an attic in an old house; Mike can’t help but think Dutch would appreciate the aesthetic.
He clenches his right fist and winces, lifts his hand, and frowns. A cut rests cleanly in the center of his palm, oozing red sluggishly but still coated with dry blood. Dropping his hand back down, he catches his breath in the quiet, stretched out against the cool ground. The sounds of buzzing energy is faint from this faraway cable room, a hideaway from the lightning crackles of old circuitry.
Something ticks against the wall, metal on metal. Mike peeks at the walls doming around him and sees nothing but the faint gleam of more dark metal flowing up around the walls. More cables, more machinery.
And no one else to be seen, even as the stranger’s voice whispers, “Are you okay?”
“‘M okay,” Mike answers, raising his head to look for who pulled him out of his death sentence. Groaning, he pushes himself up to sit, wincing at the angry burn on his hand, so he pulls that into his lap and keeps the wound close. “Where are you?”
“... Who are you?” the voice asks instead, ignoring the question, and something moves against the wall. Mike startles, because he sees the movement, but nothing is there. Nothing except black metal shining from the ghost lights.
But, something must be there. Tracking where the wall shifted, Mike squints and catches sight of something slightly paler than the darkness, places where the light simply stops and starts again, or intersects where it shouldn’t, and seven, small, cyan dots gleaming at him.
“Uh,” Mike says, suddenly very uncomfortable with sitting helplessly on the floor, “I’m Mi—”
“Mike Chilton!” they finish for him with a gasp, a dawning realization in their voice, masculine now that they’re louder than a whisper but still high pitch. The same thing shifts against the wall, another screech of metal following after it as the form moves and stops.
Mike’s eyes widen. “Y-yeah?” He stares, uncertain and tense, and starts to crawl up onto his feet. Whoever is talking to him is actually on the wall . “Who ar—”
“Oh my god, you’re the actual Mike Chilton! I can’t believe it.”
Mike really wishes it wasn’t so dark in this darn room; he’d really appreciate seeing who he’s talking to. “Yeah, I am, but—”
“I don’t even know what to say— wow! Hah! I gotta admit, you did some— some fantastic work with the Genesis Pod—”
“Who are you?” Mike cuts in sharply, and the voice immediately stops. Flushing, he realizes how angry that must have sounded and ducks his head, ears heating minutely. “I, uh… would like to thank you? But, could you come out?” he asks, lets his eyes go back up to the form in the shadows. “I see you up there.”
A pause. “You wouldn’t like that,” the voice responds with a new, hard note of cold formality. “It’s dark in here for a reason.”
“No, c’mon, I won’t—” Mike huffs, rethinks how he can ask without being pushy. Whoever the stranger is, they really don’t want to be seen, but Mike has seen Terras and mutants. He’s confident he can handle whatever isn’t being shown to him. When nothing reasonably passive to persuade the shadows comes to mind, Mike sighs, holds his injured hand close to his stomach, and whispers, “Please?” because it’s all he’s got.
For a long, long moment, Mike thinks he’s going to be left alone again, maybe have to find his own way out of this room. The contemplative silence stretches on long enough that it almost makes Mike shift awkwardly on his feet. (Almost.) But, the shadow on the wall doesn’t twitch, and Mike doesn’t move a muscle.
“And if I say no?”
In all honesty, not seeing the guy who saved him that would frankly suck, but— “Then that’s okay,” Mike answers, glances down at his hand to graze the cut idly. “I couldn’t—” make you come out. He rethinks that. That sounds insincere. “It’s not like I’m gonna force you to do anything,” he rallies, shrugging unevenly, “You kind of just saved my life.”
A faint chuckle. “Truth.”
Mike can’t help but smile. At least he got the guy to laugh.
“... You have to promise not to scream.”
Why would I do that? Mike wants to ask. “Okay,” he promises.
It still takes one last thoughtful moment for the shadows to move, metal tapping patiently against cable as the form moves down to the ground floor. Even then, Mike still has to look up as the seven glowing orbs become seven eyes on one side of a thin face that’s... still pretty high up, actually. The seven eyes are set in a black metal that stretches from the guy’s cheekbone to the brow of his other eye, arching over his aquiline nose, and crowning around the side of his head, completely over one ear that Mike can’t help but assume isn’t there at all. All seven of shining blue eyes rest in that black metal and stare, the golden hair above cut crudely so nothing obstructs the orbs. The other half of his face is covered in the same long, shaggy, blond hair, whatever is under the bangs hidden away. Thin lines trail down both his cheeks, running down his neck, across his exposed arms, sectioning his wrists like the delicate linework of an artist as studious and graceful as Dutch. Some kind of one-piece, black and blue leather, tank-topped turtleneck fits his frail frame snugly, a near-invisible zipper down their front like one of Deluxe’s “subtle zippers” on their printed clothes.
He’s very pretty, Mike realizes. The stranger almost a normal person, until Mike sees why he’s so tall.
Instead of legs— which, he still very much has legs, but… hm. Mike doesn’t think eight, metal spider legs is something most people just casually sport. The stranger’s thighs are cut off midway and replaced with two metal columns, splitting off into four legs on either side that branch up and down in three sections, metal claws with three fingers on the eight ends of each leg, acting as little hands. There are spikes on the third sections of the legs, the longest, where it dips down into the claw-hands.
Mike gapes, eyebrows shooting into his hairline, “Woah.”
“Y-yeah, uhm,” the stranger straightens out and leans back. He has to be at least twelve feet tall on those legs, holy cow— “I… yeah. Sorry…”
“No!” Mike shouts immediately, which startles the… spider guy? His narrow shoulder hop and even his eight legs skitter unsteadily. Mike keeps going. “No, are you kidding? You’re awesome, dude! Wow.”
The reassurance doesn’t do much reassuring. Spider guy just hugs himself and gives a side-eye(...s), like Mike might jump forward and bite him or something, but Mike keeps observing, awestruck as he spots little lights behind the guy’s narrow hips. He starts circling around the legs, trying to trace the sight of the metal alongside the spider’s back.
“Uhm, okay,” the spider guy squeaks uncomfortably and moves away, legs maneuvering him to the other side of the room. Mike frowns at the loss, looks back up at the stranger, who twists his hands together and asks, “So… why are you down here? I— this place is super dangerous! And, you’re Mike Chilton! If I hadn’t come and helped, you—” He whimpers. Mike winces.
Oh boy, this is going to be hard to explain. “I’m doing something for my friends,” says Mike. If this guy knows who he is, then he should know—
“The Burners,” says the stranger.
“Exactly.” Suspicions confirmed. “How much do you know about us?"
“That’s a long story,” the stranger snorts, shoulders untensing a little. “You must not have the time.” Mike is about to disagree— he’s curious to know and he’s got plenty of time!— when the spider guy stops, ducks his head, and starts chewing on his lip like he’s thinking over something. Maybe he’s rethinking!
Instead, the stranger asks, “Where do you need to go?”
“Oh! You’ll help me?” Mike asks eagerly, eager for the aid of someone who clearly knows where to go in this place. Also, Mike is completely lost, astray from his original path. He flicks up his screens, swipes until he finds where the red line ends and Dutch has drawn a big, red circle around a box that must signal some sort of room. “I need to go here, but, hah, I obviously got a little... turned around.”
The spider guy hunches forward. His legs each individually step forward, bending so that the stranger is at level with Mike, if not a bit taller, and locking into that position with a sounding click.
“Oh,” the guy says breathlessly, the undertone of a mechanic whir in his voice, pulling his bangs off the side of his face with a hand. Mike stares, surprised to see a human eye under there, blue and glowing with twirling machinery in the iris. “I… know that place. It’s a little below this floor.”
“Floor?” Mike asks, because he has no idea, and the guy rolls his eye, lip quirking up into a half smile, and drops his hair back in his face.
“I can take you there.”
Mike is about to go “how?” when the stranger scoops him up around the chest and lifts him again, and Mike knows this guy has to be enhanced somehow, there is no way someone that skinny should be able to pick him up that freaking easily. With eight claw-hands grabbing onto all sides of the room, Mike holds on for dear life as he’s lifted up into the darkness.
“So, uh, what’s your name?” Mike asks after about three minutes of travelling surprisingly fast through more little tunnels and ducts, all apparently perfectly sized for a mechanical spider person to slip through. “You didn’t answer me back there.”
“Chuck,” says the stranger. “No last name, just ‘Chuck.’”
“Life choice?” jokes Mike, offering a grin.
“... No.”
Oh. Mike’s smile falls off his face, having stepped somewhere he shouldn’t have. Shoot, he didn’t mean to make the spider guy— Chuck— sad. Internally kicking himself, Mike purses his lips, conflicted, and lets out a deep, weary sigh. He pats Chuck’s arm comfortingly, whispers, “Sorry, man. Didn’t mean to bring stuff back.”
“It’s not your fault,” says Chuck, hesitantly squeezing Mike’s sides. It makes Mike feel a little better. “You’re fighting the one who took it from me.”
… Oh . Oh, god, Mike feels sick. It stirs something in his chest that aches and rages and hurts, something old renewed, something newer unearthed, and Mike remembers the sunset.
“Here we are,” Chuck announces, and he thankfully doesn’t just drop Mike this time.
Mike still stumbles when Chuck lets go a little early, grabs a nearby box in the dark room, and hisses in pain, yanking his hand away and holding it close as it stings and throbs angrily, letting Mike know that it’s annoyed he touched something.
Then, the lights all come on, not bright enough to hurt, but clear enough to see the room with ease, beaming golden down from the rafters above.
It’s another huge, tunnel room, like the one Mike first met Chuck in, with a ceiling close enough to see the metal rafters holding spools of live cables between the golden spotlights. None of these ones crackle, safe and well-cared for, or simply deep enough that they’re undamaged from any wanderers or mutants. Huge servers, filled with lights and circuitry, are stacked around the room, wires strewn over and around them in organized streams. A railed section of a raised platform wraps around the walls of the round room, overlooking the rest of the room, with two sets of stairs on either side. It all looks oddly kept.
“What were you wanting to do in here?” Chuck asks curiously, clicking over to Mike with his ethereally patient, eight-footed steps, like he came straight out of a storybook. The way he moves in the room is suspiciously familiar, his claws blindly avoiding wires like he knows where they all are.
“Well, you don’t like Kane, right?” Mike asks, grins when he gets a firm nod, and pulls out the device Dutch gave him from his pocket. “My friend said that she might be able to hack into the live feed from Kane Co. tower from here— comms, specifically. She gave me this so that I could find wherever that, uh, server is and send it back to her.”
“A live feed,” repeats Chuck, carefully extending his hand and waiting, asking for the device. Considering he seems to know about this, Mike hands him the device willingly, watches as Chuck twists it in his hands and examines the box.
“I’m already doing that,” Chuck eventually says and hands the device back to Mike, unconcerned.
Mike stares, blinks. “You what?”
“I’m already doing that and more, actually.” Gaping, Mike goes to speak, but Chuck is already talking again, lifting his hands with an incredulous smile, “Here, let me show you.” He flicks a hand, pulling up a blue, very plain, very Deluxian screen.
Every other screen in the room activates along the first, opened immediately upon interaction. Each screen lines the wall, circling around and up toward the ceiling. Some are huge— big enough to remind Mike of Kane’s announcements— where others are small, stacked over each other like security monitors, and each one is playing something.
Each recording, Mike realizes, has the live feed of a hallway. He spots a familiar mural on the wall of a white room, and his eyes widen.
“You’re watching Kane Co. tower,” he says breathlessly, stepping forward to look closer at the screen, the same room where Mike gave his oath as a commander.
Chuck makes a confirming noise, smiling proudly, and steps up beside Mike. “Each one has sound too, if I want it, and with some early modifications I did to the system, I can access every comm in literally any department I want. Whoever I want, whenever I want.”
“Woah,” whispers Mike, eyes trailing up the wall.
“I have these, too,” Chuck adds distractedly, swiping away his screens. A long keyboard that he must have made for himself spreads across the air, which he navigates without even looking, pressing buttons with long, busy fingers.
Every live feed in the room switches to something darker, neon in the backdrop: Motorcity. Mike twists around, trying to see all of the videos. In one, he sees the Skylark Motel, the Amazon’s racetrack, even a few videos pointed to various sections of the Duke’s scrap yards and mansion. Mike chuckles at that; the Duke definitely needs more surveillance like this.
“I installed security cameras anywhere I could think of, down here,” explains Chuck, watching closely as Mike examines the feeds.
Eventually, Mike’s eyes land on a familiar wall, painted with monster teeth, bushes hiding the front, and he stops, smile dropping away. “You…”
“Yeah,” Chuck nods, eyeing Mike carefully. “I’ve had three years of work… When I really put in the effort, I was able to track you back.”
“That’s…” incredible? Kind of freaky? Mike leaves it at that, stunned. “You’ve had a lot of freetime…” and then, “So, what are you gonna do with that?” because he needs to ask. If the Burners are going to have Hell raging down on their heads— if Kane, or Kaia, or the Duke gets a hold of this information, of where they live…
“I never plan on ratting your hideout to anyone,” Chuck says dismissively. Something in Mike’s chest loosens hopefully. He would really, really appreciate another ally here. Then, Chuck snorts, scoffs as he says, "Especially not to the Duke, who would absolutely rat it out to everyone else. That guy is nuts!”
A surprised laugh escapes Mike, and he nods vigorously, giggling, “Yeah, he totally would.”
“And you and your people have had enough of that, I’m sure,” adds Chuck quietly, which makes Mike pause and turn around to look at him. Chuck is staring at him, frowning, his hair parted so that Mike gets a perfect view of a melancholy, hazel eye without a trace of unnatural, cyan glow. Aside from the seven other eyes glaring at him from the black metal over the left half of Chuck’s face, running into his hair… that gaze is human, and it knows something that makes Mike’s heart hurt all over again.
Mike has to look back to the ground, sighing out his nose softly. “What do you know?”
“Everything,” Chuck admits. Stops. Taps his keyboard again.
From the colored glares on the floor, Mike can tell that the screens have changed videos again. It takes willpower to look at them.
Every Burner mission they have ever been in plays around him. Old and new recordings, cameras and videos from over Security’s shoulders, videos that Deluxian citizens took that must have been confiscated as soon as they were circulating on forums. Mike sees himself in a few, his friends and their cars in others, and realizes that he misses them. After almost getting trapped down in the Under Depths, the scare that he may not make it back, he really just wants to see his friends again. He wants to go home.
Checking more of the videos, he sees the old apartment complex he was sent to demo, the Climator, the HOUNDs and the power core, Dutch fighting off the stupid zombie plague, Texas tied down in Kane’s interrogation cells…
Mike sees a sunset and looks away, anywhere but there, down at his bloody hand, which barely stings if he doesn’t move it. It’s coated with dry, crusting blood now, having thankfully stopped bleeding sometime much earlier. It’s a good thing it wasn’t deep enough that he’d be feeling faint by now, still sucks that it happened. He twitches his fingers and winces.
“You’re hurt,” Chuck observes aloud, almost in Mike’s ear.
Barely holding back a strangled, surprised noise, Mike jumps about a foot in the air and away from Chuck, who leans back up on his ridiculously long, metal legs. “I, uh, have some bandages, up in my room?” Chuck stammers, tying his hands together and rubbing at the sides with his thumb, self-soothing. “If you want to patch that up. But, I’m sure you should probably get back home to fix it properly.”
Mike rubs his thumb across his palm, furrowing his brow thoughtfully. “Yeah… yeah, that’d be great,” he replies, glancing up at Chuck.
“Cool,” says Chuck, backing up with a few clinks. “Be right back, then.” He steps back against the wall, one of his spider legs already reaching to grab the cables, and turns, climbing up the wall skillfully and disappearing into a hole somewhere in the rafters.
Mike stares, impressed, and stays put, turning to distract himself with the recordings. He remembers every mission that he sees— the bot fights are a little more foggy, though. Normally the Burners just hop in, shoot them down, and head right back home or to Antonio’s. He still has the device in his pocket and pulls it out, examining the hard drive that he… honestly probably won’t be using.
If Chuck already has a system set up down here, Mike wouldn’t want to interfere with it— not when he’s got something so good going on. It’s obvious Chuck has been down here for long enough that he has a routine, so… Shoot, Mike may have to rethink this.
“Here it is!” Chuck calls and clatters across the wall, dropping down next to Mike with a clang that hurts his ears. Seeming entirely unbothered by the noise, Chuck hands Mike a roll of gauze and a piece of old cloth, maybe torn from a shirt.
“Cool,” says Mike, casting Chuck a grateful smile, and unwrapping the gauze, “thank you!"
“Anytime,” Chuck smiles back, twitching and awkward. Mike chalks it up to three years of being stuck down here, probably alone, and merrily goes about wrapping his hand. “So, uh…”
Mike stares intently down his hand, still wrapping. “Hm?”
“I… have, well, obviously been watching you guys— uh, the Burners. I have all your recordings, all your files, criminal charges…”
Mike raises his head to frown at Chuck, unsure where this is heading.
Chuck sees Mike’s frown, squeaks out something that literally rattles, and blurts, “I’d like to help you!” He holds himself anxiously, hands raising so that he almost hides his face away, and Mike’s eyebrows rise into his hairline. “I… Kane’s done some really bad stuff, okay? I see it,” Chuck explains, gestures to the videos, “I have the videos, I have the evidence— hell, I have the experience. I know what he can do, and I know the cost will be if I… screw up.” Chuck’s legs bend in on themselves, compacting, and he lowers down to normal height, looking seriously at Mike with pinched lips and a conviction that does something in Mike’s chest, makes him start to jitter with anticipation and excitement. Worry is a faint afterthought.
“I want to help you fight Kane,” says Chuck carefully, voice barely wavering, “and win.”
Little, tiny details click into place as Mike stares back at Chuck, glancing over the spider legs, over the scars across his arms, between his eye and the seven others peering back at him, and something in Mike’s brain snaps into a perfect, snug place. Oh, he realizes.
This is what he’s been waiting for. This is who Mike has been looking for. This is the missing piece to those three extra steps.
“Yes,” says Mike, breathless.
Chuck blinks his eye at him, like he didn’t process the answer. “Wh—? Y-you mean it?”
“Yes!” Mike grins. “Yes, that’d be amazing!”
A huge smile breaks onto Chuck’s face, shocked. Immediately hoping back to his full, glorious twelve-feet of height, Chuck taps all of his claws excitedly, wagging his hands like he needs to get the energy out somehow, “Oh my gosh, okay! Okay, yes! Awesome— you won’t regret this! I already have an idea I wanted to run by you!”
Chuck already has an idea. This guy is a future rebel after Mike’s heart.
“That’s great, man,” says Mike. He reaches out to pat one of Chuck’s legs with his uncut hand. Chuck pauses and looks at the hand like he’s surprised, then smiles, dorky and relieved. “But,” Mike starts, keeping his hand on the cool metal segment, “save the idea for the others! They’re gonna wanna hear it too.”
“Oh,” Chuck says, and then, astonished, “oh. You’re— I’m going to meet them?”
“Yeah! If you want to, bro!” Mike beams. “You already know where the hideout is,” he shrugs, “‘s not like you can do more damage than you already could, right?”
“I’d never want to do damage in the first place,” sneers Chuck, apparently disgusted by the notion, which makes Mike feel even better about his new pal. The Burners are going to love Chuck and his awesome tech and his big brain. Mike can’t wait to see the looks on their faces when he shows them he found in the Under Depths!
“Well, gosh, I’m ready to head back up, if you want to come now?” Mike suggests, shrugging easily.
Chuck gapes. “Yes, I— yeah! Oh my god, okay, lemme just do a few things!” He whips around and disappears back into the hole in the wall in less than a second.
Mike whistles after him, impressed with how fast the guy can move with so many legs. He would have assumed Chuck would be slipping and sliding everywhere with it being metal-on-metal, but he moves around just fine, knowing his environment as well as a spider knows its web. (Hah, spider jokes. He should think of some to try to make Chuck laugh.)
About five minutes pass before his new friend is crawling back down to ground level. He’s without a bag— Mike kind of assumed he would be bringing some stuff, it’s fine if not though!— but his bangs look a little more smooth and he’s in a different outfit, instead sporting another leather tank-top turtleneck, but it’s a shirt rather than a tight suit, with some shorts cut to fit what remains of his thighs. Mike smiles at him, endeared that Chuck would tidy up, and Chuck catches the look and flushes with embarrassment, clearing his throat awkwardly. He flicks away the first screen he opened when they entered the room. With that one winking out, they all shut down, the room becoming blank again, and the spotlights shut off with a snap. The ghost lights turn back on a second after, but Mike is perfectly blind until his eyes decide to not make everything pitch black again.
“Alright,” Chuck says through the dark. Feeling a hand carefully grab him, Mike blinks, waiting for his eyes to readjust, and can only see Chuck because of the seven little dots glowing above him. “Where did you come in from?”
Walking out of the broken double-doors and into Motorcity air is a relief to Mike. He steps out of the building and takes in a deep breath in, sighing it out. He didn’t realize how different the air was in the Under Depths, electric and muggy. It’s good to be out.
Chuck must think otherwise. Anxious hands pulled to his chest, he edges out of the facility like the shadows are going to jump out at him, legs half-folded so he’s closing in on Mike’s height, meek and cautious, and takes maybe a step out before he stops and stares around, checking the area. Mike doesn’t bug the poor guy; he probably doesn’t get out much because… yeah, someone would notice if a guy like Chuck was strolling down the street. Plus, it took them fifteen minutes to get back to the storm doors where Mike came in, versus the almost-hour it took Mike to walk almost half of the way to what ended up being Chuck’s hideout. (House, maybe? Where Chuck stays, sleeps, and works seems close enough.)
Mike pulls his gaze away from Chuck and pauses when he sees Mutt waiting for him on the road, alone.
“Hm,” he thinks aloud, pulling up his comms, “where’d Dutch go?”
Chuck vaguely goes “huh?” as Dutch answers the call in barely two rings, box avatar appearing in front of Mike with a big smile.
“Mike!! You’re back!” Dutch exclaims, “How’d it go? Did everything work out okay?”
“Yeah! It went better than expected, actually,” grins Mike. “Where are you?”
“We just had a bot skirmish. Julie came down and we handled it quick. I’m on my way back to the Depths now!”
“Don’t bother. But, hey, call the others, tell them to meet at HQ.”
“Oh yeah? Did you find something shiny down there?”
Mike glances back as Chuck creeps from the doorway like a skittish deer, having to duck his lower body just to get out of the doorway, and stares around at the vast expanse of the Depths. So neat , Mike thinks idly, and says, “You have no idea…”
“Okay?...” Dutch says, his avatar’s eyes squinting suspiciously. “Y’wanna fill me in?”
“You’ll see soon! It’ll be a surprise,” assures Mike. “Just make sure everyone is there.”
“You got it, man,” says Dutch, obviously curious, thankfully not pushing for an answer. Mike isn’t sure if he’d be able to keep the surprise if someone started pleading him right now— he’s too stoked to tell them. “See you at home!”
The commlink winks out, and Mike spins around on his toes, clapping his hands together, “Alright, Chuckles—”
“Excuse me?”
“— meet my lady!” Mike announces, gesturing grandly to his bright green car. Chuck makes a loud noise of intrigue, focus narrowing intently on the car, and immediately taps his way forward to crouch down and look at her paint job. “Her name is Mutt,” says Mike proudly, watching Chuck run his hand along the metal of her hood.
“It’s beautiful,” Chuck whispers, amazed, stops when he catches sight of the title ‘MUTT’ in her black stripes.
Mike tilts his head, pleased to see that Chuck likes her, but— “Haven’t you ever seen a car?”
“No, this is my first time since, like, your videos and stuff,” says Chuck, eyeing the door handle. He pulls on it and smiles when the door opens for him, dipping his head to look inside the passenger door. “I didn’t realize how big they were! I thought it was cramped— like, pods were always big to me— but pods are externally huge. I expected cars to barely have leg room, but you could lay all over the two front seats! Well, I’m not saying it’s not tight— it is!— but—”
“Yeah, dude,” says Mike cheerfully, barely catching what’s being said to him as he eyes Chuck’s legs with a growing uncertainty. The guy still rattling on about how surprisingly big the car is, but… hm, they might have a problem.
How the heck is Chuck gonna fit in the car?
He’s a skinny dude, but he’s kinda got the eight, huge, metal legs situation going on. Mike furrows his brow, crosses his arms, and rubs his chin thoughtfully, “Um…”
“Huh?” Chuck goes and continues to slam against the top of the car with a sharp yelp, and then an “OW” as he rubs at the top of his head.
Mike accidentally lets out a snort and covers his mouth, unable to hide his laughter when Chuck turns and pouts. “Hey, it happens to the best of us!”
“Ah yes, ‘the best of us,’” Chuck says with dripping sarcasm, head rolling like he’s rolling his eye, the same drama put into it that the Duke normally uses.
“So, uh,” Mike waggles his fingers toward the open door, “that’s where you’re going to be sitting, but… how are we gonna get you in?”
“Oh, easy.”
Mike is about to point something ridiculous out, like “you’re twelve feet tall,” in case Chuck forgot, when Chuck’s legs just… fold. Each section bends in on itself, and Chuck moves and sits on the edge of the Mutt’s seat, waiting until he’s left with eight, single sections, each with the little claws on the end, small enough to fit under Mutt’s dash. Not that Mike would say this out loud— much less to Chuck’s face— but Chuck kind of reminds him of what if a camera stand had eight legs instead of three.
“Wow!” Mike gasps, not meaning to stare but not quite looking away either. “Dude, I didn’t know you could do that!”
“I can do a lot of things,” says Chuck, giving Mike a weird look. “I’m not just some guy with eight legs, okay?”
Oh, whoops, Mike didn’t mean it like that. “I didn’t doubt you for a second,” he grins instead, striding around to the driver’s seat. “I mean, considering you’re about to help us take down Kane and have been doing what we just thought to do for years.”
A pause and then, “Oh. Oh! Well, I mean… yeah!” Mike glances over and swears Chuck hides a proud, flustered smile as he reaches over to shut the passenger door. “Yeah, I guess it was a pretty good idea, huh?”
“Heck yeah it was,” Mike encourages, slotting in Mutt’s key. “It won’t take us long to get to HQ. We’re just up on the north side, actually.”
“Oh! Cool, so the… uh, drive won’t take long?”
“Yep, only seven minutes at three hundred!”
Chuck frowns. “Three hundred wha—?”
Mike knows these motions. Chuck very clearly doesn’t. The moment his boot hits the gas, tires screeching against the ramp, Chuck grabs for the seat and the front of the dash and shrieks as Mutt lurches down the road.