|Ace>

  Half an hour later, we'd assembled a small army in the border zone between the entertainment district and the red light district. A whole raid worth of FUN, Ruin, and Hermann Park's finest broken into small teams and slowly moving in on the canal-side laboratory. The NPCs hadn't left a guard outside this time.

  Cherry and I crouched behind the brick half-wall that ran along the canal's edge, sketching a crude map of the facility on a piece of parchment.

  "So this door leads to the main hallway." I explained, drawing a line with my finger. "Then there's this T-junction with the observation room here, test subject pens down this way, and the capsule storage over here."

  "What about these areas?" Percy asked, pointing to the blank spaces I'd left on the map.

  "Unknown." Cherry said. "We didn't get a chance to check those before Mr. Creepy McBaldhead tried to feed us to his pet monster."

  Percy turned to Lucy, who was already making notes in her UI. "I'm going to go straight for the pens - if they free those things, we're going to have a hell of a time beating them back. We need to find out what's in the rest of these unknown doors as soon as possible."

  Lucy nodded, already sending messages to the team leaders.

  "How're we looking?" Percy asked, turning to Fritz.

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  Fritz, also managing messages, said, "Everyone's here, and we have no response from the Guard or mafias. Looks clear to move in."

  "Alright, on my mark." Percy said. "You two stay put."

  Cherry and I nodded. I pulled out our drone and flew it behind Percy as he crept along the wall to a point halfway across the bridge that spanned the canal directly above the facility entrance. He paused, taking a deep breath, then shouted, "Hit it!"

  He vaulted over the wall, dropping down into the canal. The teams poured over the walls and down the embankments after him. The first team landed directly in front of the door and immediately went into formation. Their tank, a burly guy in plate armor, stepped forward and kicked the door with enough force to shatter the hinges. They burst through the second door and scattered through the facility.

  Percy moved faster than the others, breaking away from the main group and heading straight for the test subject room. He snapped his fingers and waved his hands, conjuring magical walls and throwing out pre-emptive area effect spells in the doorways he passed by.

  He reached the door to the pen room and kicked it open, disappearing into threads of light as he teleported forward inside. Fire flashed out in every direction as he materialized in the center of the room, sword drawn and ready for a fight.

  But there was nothing.

  The room was empty - a solid, monolithic concrete box. No animal pens, no NPC prisoners, no monstrous test subjects. Not even a trace that they had ever been there.

  Percy lowered his sword, turning toward the drone with a confused half-shrug. There was no audio, but I could practically hear him asking, 'What gives?'

  I swerved the drone around and flew it back into the hallway, passing over the heads of the raid teams who were systematically checking each room. I guided it into the room where we'd seen the containment capsules - the dark, writhing substances in their glass coffins.

  It was also empty. Just another empty storage room.

  "But- but- it was all there!" Cherry said. "We have pictures! Look!" She waved her menu around frantically.

  Willard, watching the drone feed with us, said, "I believe you. Just what the hell is this game doing when we aren't paying attention?"