*You could be right, but we got this info from Robert as a place where Squiddy has been known to operate from. It may be that he is just using these people but then again, these guys seem to be right up his alley. He well may be just using them for his own ends, but we are going to have to do something about these folks one way or another.*

Courier and Raider move on from the generator and deeper into the tunnels finally coming up within what appears to be the basement of a large building. Circuit breakers, and switch-junctions line the walls and all manner of cable run to and from into the tunnels they just departed from. Here there are only a few people, or apparently people, a few display only minor aberrations but are still clearly novas. They move about the equipment performing checks on operational panels and repairing ruined circuits.

*Whooh. Real novas. What are we seeing here? This is like something out of our city. Let's move up and see where we are.*

Unless Raider has compeling reasons for staying here, Doug takes both of them up through the ceiling to see where they are, then where ever Raider thinks would best give them an idea on what is going on.

*Go ahead. Knowing where this is could be very important. Let's see what is above and it might give me more of a clue as to what this is all about. Once we do know, I definitely want to come back and take a good look and figure out what they are doing.*

Courier and Raider move up through the structure keeping to the walls to minimize the slight chance that they might be seen. They pass through several floors which appear to be manufacturing equipment. At first they are suprised to see humans working within this area but Courier's node plus closer investigation show that they are indeed novas. Traveling farther up they encounter a few open floors laid out as living quarters, lavishly appointed, the leadership of York likely lives here. Continuing upward they confirm that this is the repaired spire they saw when they flew over the city. Near the top, some forty floors above the ground they encounter a wide open room filled with rows and banks of comupters and terminals.

Raider is nearly drooling over the computers. *After seeing all of this, I'm not so sure that KB will be killed. They might slaughter humans, but I don't think they will waste Nova resources. More likely they will have a nova that can mess with her mind or in some other way brainwash her into joining their cause, whatever that is.* He considers for a moment, *I think we need to investigate this place further. Specifically this building, if anyone here knows what's really going on its these folks. We also need to warn the folks back home about this place. I suspect we are very high on these peoples conquest list. We are close by and have a large workforce just ripe for the picking and these guys have the muscle to make it happen even without the kind of technology James is trying to get his hands on.*

Doug sents,

*Good god, the scale of all this, this is way beyond Squid leading a pack of nova-aberrants.*

*I’m not sure yet they’re hostile, at least not to us. They seem to be putting civilization back together. This is pretty much what someone would see if they came to our city, minus the enslavement of baselines. Maybe we should make contact.*

*The real question is what’s Squid’s role in all this? He's big time Megalomaniac right? So either he’d be in charge or this is the group he wants to nuke, or maybe both. How are you on juice? Having seen all this I feel the need to ask your dad how high up Squid is on the chain of command here.*

*Oh, and if any of these computers are functional, do you think you could do something with one and learn something?*

*I think questioning Robert is a very good idea. And you may be right, James may want the nuke to take control of this place if he isn't already in control. As for the computers, yeah, I could definitely have some fun with those, although, I'd really like to find out what the function of this place is first.*

Finally convinced that they need to go back and gather more information, Courier contacts Adam and requests a warp home. Adam opens a gateway a few hundred feet in the air and the two fly through and return home.