Mahrod was just as displeased and confused with his new findings from the underground exploration as he was with the ones from his bird's-eye surveillance. Maybe more, considering how they seemed to overlap in the 'ridiculously redundant and paranoid' security and reinforcement. He didn't have all the information he needed yet but things looked fairly annoying for him and his Fader support. Once they met up to discuss things, surely more would be able to be discerned and a plan of action formed, but whatever happened next, Mahrod was convinced that this underground bunker network was critical to it all.
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The Fader, remembering Mahrod's comments about the city layout, decided to stick to the original, pre-expansion development core in its search for a safehouse. While it is true that it was far more 'disorganized', insofar as its districts had mixed purposes, it was preferable to remain closer to the spaceport for observation. The development expansions were of course much more methodically organized, with dedicated, clean-cut districts for different purposes, but the residential ones all seemed to be much closer to the outskirts than anything else.
By Akaro's will, the Fader had oriented itself to find a local family that was affluent enough to live in a high-rise. It had of course
nothing to do with style at all or anything; such nonsense was best left to Judas and his penchant for flaunting. Rather, it would offer a good view to better observe, and having enough resources to live in a high-rise meant that the family would be in a better position to provide whatever the Fader or Mahrod needed.
Sure enough, after enough digging and prodding, the Fader struck gold with a family of four living close to the top of a high-rise next to the development core's eastern edge. The Fader had found the group after their short trip outside to pick up groceries. Amplifying their notions of "Curiosity", "Trust" and "Loyalty", it was easy to get invited as a guest for an undefined period of time, with no mention of either the Fader or Mahrod to be made to anybody unless strictly necessary.
The apartment where the family lived was comfortable enough - four rooms total each with its own bath and closet, living room with a view, dining room, kitchen, laundry room, family room. No pet to be found and all the better for it, frankly. The design was not quite minimalist, but the heads of house had decided to be sparing with decoration, preferring few but high-quality items; a painting here, a vase there. It could easily give a sense of home with its wooden floors and cream-colored walls, the high technology making the place functional discreetly integrated so as to avoid being overbearing.
The Fader took the time to explore it in detail, lest there be any kind of wiretapping going on that it should be aware of. As this was done, however, gentle inquiry was made, both regarding trivialities (the youngest, a boy, had done well in the spelling bee! the eldest, a girl, was head-over-heels for the debate team captain!) and far more pressing issues. Alas, beyond having a few connections, not much was to be known beyond the fact that the city had evolved into what it was today almost out of the blue - it had started much like any frontier settlement, until a few years ago when it began to burgeon exponentially...
Before having the Fader leave to find the Saints that Mahrod had asked for, Akaro made it a point to thoroughly think about these people - Neuvielae, was it? - this Nuevielae family. As somebody whose strongest craving was perspective, he had to know about them. There was no risk, contrary to prying too deeply into his fellow Heralds, or the Saints he had to pursue. How far could they go? What would they do under which circumstances, and how? His desire to anticipate and predict, to perfection, kicked in hard, until his curiosity was sated enough for him to focus on the next segment...
With a safehouse secured and their secret safe, the Fader resumed its Saint-hunting. Already, while searching for the family, some small progress had been made, but Akaro was not one to leave things half-done. The plan was to have at minimum 3 separate Saints and to mess with them as little as possible. Two had already been found, apparent loners from the Fader's impressions and tracking. With their "Trust" being amplified, information had been easy enough to come by...
The first two Saints had both been female, about as opposite as possible - blonde vs raven-haired; short vs tall; busty vs flat; bossy vs meek; gray-eyed vs brown-eyed; plain clothes vs extravagant clothes; deep voice vs high-pitched voice. Akaro would gladly observe their interactions and inevitable friction, but that was to be for another time. The Fader did its subtle work, and got from each of them some information that required further verification - there was something hidden underground. Apparently only the top tier of the brass really knew what was going on, but there was definitely something hidden. Worse, it was extremely important, and the presence of the Saints was as a security measure of all things.
The implications were profound, and had weighed heavily on Akaro's mind even while the Fader did its work with the Neulievae family. It came back to the forefront when the Fader set out to find more Saints. Much as Akaro would have wanted to dedicate ample time to assimilating the perspectives of each, there was still work to be done, and he knew from the briefing that even if they were not at a Herald's level, a Saint's mind was not to be trifled with. He'd eventually get there, through other, less forceful means, but in the meantime, better to get cracking...
Eventually, after some more time searching for suitable targets, the Fader had found an additional three. All of them seemed to be unaware of the others beyond mere names if at all, but, frustratingly, the information acquired from the new ones (beyond token efforts at socialization such as hobbies and the like) was either redundant or extremely small if new....
The final three Saints were all male, and, Akaro perceived, were about as bland as possible. Seriously, just trying to keep them distinct between each other was hard enough, how could people be so... forgettable? All around the same height and weight, with the same boring shaved-down-to-almost-bald haircut, green-eyed, small-nosed, same tone of voice. Whether or not that said something about their work and the religion they followed or not was something Akaro could ponder at a later time.
The information the Fader had to acquire came by easily once again through precision and subtlety in the questioning, but for the most part it largely just confirmed what had been learned before. The real treat, however, lay in the additional discovery about the whole arrangement - security had been designed to be either impenetrable or as close to it as possible: alarms and sensors everywhere, cameras, schedules and shifts so strict they would have made more sense on robots than humans...
Akaro would make time to properly integrate the perspectives of these people as his own, eventually. Unremarkable though they may be, they were still fundamentally 'other', and thus, worth knowing in this sense. Still, Mahrod had to be informed of this all, and as such, Akaro knew what needed to happen next, regardless of his intentions towards these Saints...
Its tasks completed, the Fader returned to the agreed meeting spot since it was not yet too late in the day to wait for Mahrod's return. Akaro had plenty to think about in the meantime, both regarding the events here in Archangel III and the mess transpiring in Archangel V...
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When the Fader arrived, this time it was Mahrod waiting for her. Comfortably leaning against the wall in his Casual Male Form, he discreetly waved and then the two began to exchange information regarding everything that had been found. The combined information bore sinister fruit - the gigantic bunker network was designed to conceal something, and perhaps more appropriately, contain it. The Saints were there in case 'something' went wrong - whatever that could be. Mahrod and Akaro agreed on the hypothesis that Syxtaros must have found 'whatever' was currently underground after the city had been established, then progressively increased its defenses and security under the pretense of keeping the city growing. The Saints had not all been there from the start, so there must have been a change in the status quo regarding the 'something' located below. The war starting was likely no coincidence either, but taking the other factions into account was trying to stretch themselves too thin.
For the moment, with all these revelations weighing on their mind, Mahrod and the Fader went back to the safehouse to plan their next move. It was clear that discovering whatever it was that had been found was the top priority, but Mahrod did not want to go straight for the infiltration option - not when security was as paranoid as he now knew both from his scans and the Fader's information. It might very well come to that, and hell, his shapeshifting ability might well give him an edge, but Mahrod didn't fancy himself so above it all as to be able to get in without trouble. No, risk and danger were always close company no matter who you were.
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Mahrod liked the safehouse well enough, and being treated to late lunch by the Neuvielae family was a welcome reprieve from the consuming doubts about the mess here. Encouraged by Mahrod, the Fader probed some more to find the local government building along with is archives. This time, both of them would head there to see if they could find official records of any kind to bolster their knowledge either of the 'something' being held underground, the network itself, or whatever else that could be of use. The plan of approach was simple if rudimentary: the two would get close, Mahrod would use his Spy Form to thoroughly analyze from the outside, and if it was reasonable to do so, would enter the building in his Infiltration Form. The Fader meanwhile would pick up whatever information it could from the people working there - combining their knowledge, the Fader would compel somebody with the proper credentials to do additional infiltration for it in parallel to Mahrod's own...
