Dirty Business

Rebecca takes cover by the entrance as Ori steadily approaches one of the many murder bots, knowing full well how powerful these things were. While Lazarus had seemingly replaced most of them with their own machines, as the crew as seen on the Strip with one burning a woman alive, Ori was sure he'd be able to destroy these ones.

The main reason he was taking this risk at all was the designation marked on their sides, they were Militech units, meaning they didn't have any connections with the Crystal Tower anymore, simply placed here to dissuade anyone attempting to break in via this route.

Since according to Aliya Militech had already pulled their support due to the DMS coupe, these machines probably had no connection to any network left, which is exactly what Militech intended... Purely out of spite, they allowed DMS to rely on these unreliable units...

Ori slinks over, dunking between stone rubble and sewer pipes as he approached. The things were almost triple his height, and his lack of proper weaponry made it difficult to visualise exactly how he was going to bring the down...

He wasn't afraid though... Once one of the machines turns towards the pebble he'd tossed he leaps out, running up and springing off of the back of its leg, up to its back before plunging the Injector straight into it.

The machine gives a whirring screech as it tries to shake him off, but he keeps his grip and maintains his position, allowing the nanites to quickly take it apart.

The other two robots open fire on their comrade but Ori ducks down, allowing the brunt of their attacks to hit their comrade. The powerful weaponry quickly begins tearing it apart, but he keeps the injector active, eventually spreading black nanite tendrils through its component.

The robot freezes, and after a moment, drops to the floor limply. Rebecca leaps into action as the first one falls, drawing the two robots' fire towards her and allowing Ori to recover from the massive amounts of resources he'd absorbed, most of which had had to be scrapped to stop his body from imploding on itself... Metal and materials could only get so dense before the energy expenditure became too costly.

"Hahaha! Come on! You buckets of bolts got no brain or somethin'!? COME GET ME!" she shouts and hurriedly ducks back into the tunnel, causing the bots to all but forget Ori's existence. With that, he sprints over at the next, his Monowire shooting out into a huge arc that splits one robot completely through the middle with some small amount of difficulty.

As the separated pieces fall to the ground, a bright sparking bolt hits the last one in the back, instantly burning a hole through its plating and into its core... Another moment later and it falls to the ground, limp and inactive.

"How about that!? Asshole!" Rebecca cackles as she runs up and stands victoriously above the destroyed robot.

Ori rolls his shoulder and brushes some dust off of himself, "Nice job. Let's see if it was worse the effort."

"I doubt they'd have even more security after those bots." she points a thumb over her shoulder, "Most gonk mercs would die to those things."

He shoots her a withering glare, "Bragging is fine but don't get cocky. One good shot from those things would've blown you to pieces..." he remonstrates before making his way over to the sewer access, one flowing with the Crystal Tower's garbage and refuse...

"We'll do a quick check then get back to the other, we can't alert the Tower before we're ready." Ori states, clambering inside while the Collective mutes his sense of touch, smell, taste, and anything else that'd allow him to not experience wading into shit...

"Ah... I'll keep watch back here. You go ahead..." Rebecca says, kicking her shoe into the ground to rid it of 'doo-doo water'.

"Yeah... Great..."

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Ori spends three or four hours in the sewer pipes, carefully laying out the structure, hidden security systems, and potential pathway to the vault. He was lucky, the cameras, insect-shaped robots, and other defences were easily dealt with, either by destroying them with his Injector, stopping their emergency signals completely, or sneaking past them with some careful subterfuge.

The route he found, unfortunately, led up to a toilet in the women's bathroom. This was located on the second deepest floor in the basement, though, he was only able to tell by having the nanite construct miniature drones that could actually fit through the pipes and toilet bowl.

If the team was going to come this way they'd probably need to destroy it, which meant further difficulty in executing the heist.

Shaking his head and deciding to get out of the shit, he makes his way back to Rebecca, collects her, and then returns to New Caesar's Palace to relay what he'd learned with the others... After having a long shower and buying some new clothes, of course...

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"Hey, somethin' smell funny to you guys?" Pilar wonders aloud in the lounge as everyone gathers to speak of what they found with respect to the gig.

"Yeah, I had to climb through some sewer pipes... I'd rather hear what you guys found before I tell you about it though," he shrugs, "It'll make me feel a lot better if you got nothing." Ori states, glancing at Rebecca who'd sat some distance away.

"Yeah your stank is crazy, clean up again or you're sleeping on the couch..." she says scrunching up her nose in revulsion.

"Always knew you'd support me, even after sending me into the sewers alone to keep your boots clean." he grumbles tiredly.

Maine drops onto a chair with a beer, gesturing at Lucy, "Give 'em what we got."