The next day, Burnout, Whisper Wind and Dave went to work picking up Michael's trail.
The station that the gang had been operating out of turned out to not even be an operating station; it was part of a planned line expansion that was never completed. After some time comparing the plans with city maps, the three of them found another station, this one even less finished that the first. Its entrance was chained up. Ticket booths hadn't been installed. Only part of the fountain was in. There were no security cameras, and the bathrooms were unfinished.
Whisp led the way to the equally abandoned lower level, then on foot down the tunnel. Eventually the municipally-dug tunnel ended and a rough hewn tunnel took over. Tracks continued in a functioning but haphazard fashion and the route veered off of the planned expansion.
Eventually, it opened up into a large underground cavern. A single dilapidated subway car sat on the rails ahead, stopped at a rickety platform. Running water could be heard somewhere in the dimly lit expanse.
Whisp snuck forward, but was seen by a lookout in the car.
"You! Stop!"
"Oh, hey!" said Whisp, trying to play it cool. Dave edged closer while Burnout flew a drone in to get a closer look. "I think I'm lost. Can you help me out?"
"Come here." The lookout - recognizably a part of Michael's gang - stepped outside of the car. Burnout's drone found four more guys playing cards inside. From the drone's perspective, it was obvious the winner was cheating.
Whisp stepped a bit closer. "Hey, you know what, I can just go, I didn't want to bother you."
"No, wait here for a-" The lookout noticed Whisp's rifle and brought his own up nervously. "Hey! Drop your weapon!"
"What? Hey, I can just go, you don't have to worry about-"
"I said drop it!" He called over his shoulder back into the car. "Tim! Come out here!"
Dave edged closer to the car as the cheater groaned and set his cards down. "What is it, Gary?"
"Dude's armed!"
Whisp set down his rifle and slowly circled around, warning his teammates under his breath to avert their eyes, and putting Gary between him and the car. "Sorry guys, I really just wanted to-" Whisp set off a flash-pak, blinding them, and Dave ran up and blasted at one of them. Burnout relayed his current intel and then ran into the firefight as well, tossing Whisp back his rifle when he got to it.
For once, all three runners did good by themselves in the firefight, instead of just relying on Dave. The troll was hit a few times, but things were looking up - until Burnout took one hit from a yet-unseen sniper across the underground stream. He hit the ground and crawled behind the subway car. Whisp took his rifle, sighted, and counter-sniped with one shot.
As fast as it started, the firefight was over. Dave patched up himself and Burnout, and entered the car with Whisp while Burnout set back to exploring the cavern with drones.
Inside the car, Dave found a commlink on one of the gang members and tried a redial.
"Who's this?" asked a casual voice on the other end of the line.
"This is Dave," Dave said. "Can I assume this is Michael?"
"Sure is."
"I've got someone here who wants to talk to you." Dave offered the commlink to Whisp, who vehemently refused it. The troll placed it in the human's hand anyway; a bit hard to argue.
"Fascinating. That sounded messy," Michael continued. "I assume you already took out all of my guys?"
"Uhhh, yeah."
"Did they at least get some of you?"
"No, not really."
"Well, how many of you are there? I had six there."
Whisp made a show of looking around, though the link was voice-only. "About a dozen. You?"
"About a thousand."
Burnout, overhearing this outside, rolled his eyes and climbed up inside the car. "All clear out here. Some of the guys are getting restless."
"They can wait." The three of them started poking around the car; equipment of some sort - most likely for the manufacture of Bliss - was scattered around it. "Now, Michael. I don't suppose you'd like to tell us where you are?"
"I don't suppose I would. Why are you looking for me? Is it personal? For money? It'd have to be for money. How much am I worth?"
"Two thousand." (The actual bounty that Whisp had signed on for was ten thousand.)
"I'll give you twenty thousand to leave right now."
Dave crouched next to a wire mesh crate and wrinkled his nose. "Make if forty thousand and we don't kill your cook," he said. A man was curled up in a bed of his own waste, seemingly asleep through the preceding firefight. Dave slapped him around a bit to wake him up.
"Hey, that's uncalled for," Michael said over the commlink. Whisp belatedly realized that Michael could see what was happening and looked around. a Fly-Spy drone in different colors from Burnout's was sitting on the makeshift card table. Whisp yanked out his knife and made to stab it, but it flew away, disappearing into the cabin.
"That," observed Burnout, "was slightly called for."
Over the next half hour, the team explored the cavern and spoke to Walter, the imprisoned man. The cavern turned up nothing but the occasional glimpse of Michael's drone and the stream continuing downriver with no way to navigate it; Walter revealed that he had been prisoner for around three years. Together, the four of them destroyed the equipment, hoping it'd be cathartic for Walter.
With no leads, the team started to take the car back down the tracks, but Burnout realized that just as his drones couldn't go far enough downriver to see anything, Michael shouldn't have the range for his drones to spy on the group. They went back to the cavern, searched it again, and Burnout found a cable at the bottom of the car connected to the rail. Waiting until he could see Michael's drone, he cut the cable, and the drone dropped to the ground, inert. Either Michael had figured out a way to use the rail and car as an extended radio antenna, or there was a device somewhere in the car that was retransmitting the signal (a device which, thinking back on it, Burnout had probably destroyed in the zeal to destroy the rest of the machinery).
Following the rails back down the tunnel, Dave spotted an out of place wall. A cable bundle snaked from the rail into it and a small drone-sized hole sat next to it. Burnout sent one inside, finding that the secret door could only be opened from deeper within the hallway on the other side.
The hallway descended a short distance then opened up into a large control room. Four guards stood near the entrance. Three deckers worked at various control stations. One rigger sat in a chair. And someone sat in the middle of the room not doing anything, but doing so in a way that made it obvious that he was Michael.
The team looked at each other. They couldn't get in, and they definitely weren't coming out. Now what?
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