The hatch was the kind of object that had decided, sometime in the last few decades, that its purpose in life was to remain closed forever. Corroded into the ground, untouched since the course shut down, it resisted the idea of movement with the stubborn dignity of rusted metal that believed it had earned its retirement.
Proxy disagreed with that philosophy and applied steady pressure, along with a strain of physical stubbornness he didn't usually have to look for. It did not work. Nyx eventually had to step up for the job.
Eventually it relented, opening with a grinding shriek that sounded more like protest, and it rewarded their success with a faceful of stale air thick with the smell of irrigation chemicals that had decades decomposing into something worse.
"Lovely," he said.
"Our basement was nicer," Nyx replied, and then, demonstrating admirable commitment to the idea of forward progress, dropped down first.
Proxy followed after her.
The hatch shut above them, and the light reduced itself to almost nothing.
The passage was low, but low enough that movement required a fast crouch and a willingness to disregard what your spine might say about the matter later.
The floor carried enough water that he could feel it through the soles of his boots. Above them, muted but close enough to matter, the fight was still happening.
Proxy heard the sharp crack of a sidearm. Then another. Then the rough chatter of an SMG burst that vibrated faintly through the pipe under his hand.
"Hm. Our maintenance passage doesn't have a good ring to it," Nyx observed.
"Are you serious."
He moved forward at a crouch.
The sounds from above filtered through the concrete like a crude map of the battlefield. Movement translated into dull impacts, scraped turf, and occasionally the unmistakable thud of a body hitting the ground from somewhere.
"The fast woman probably has the upper hand up there."
"Why. Why not the man."
"What is that reaction," Proxy said, faintly aware Nyx's eyes had a glint of amber on them.
They kept moving.
Something struck the turf above them with the weight and violence of a person being thrown rather than someone simply falling.
The impact carried a deep concussive note that shook a thin drift of dust loose from the passage ceiling and sent a vibration down the pipe into Proxy's palm.
Both of them stopped.
Waiting felt like the correct response.
A voice came through the concrete.
"-going to pull that arm out of your-"
The sentence never reached its conclusion. Another burst of SMG fire erased the rest of it.
They continued.
About twenty meters in, the fight shifted directly overhead.
Running footsteps crossed above them, two distinct sets, one noticeably faster than the other.
Then came the ringing metallic sound of chrome striking something that was definitely not chrome.
Immediately followed by a short sound that felt like a gasp of pain.
Nyx paused long enough to look up at the ceiling.
Proxy did not stop walking.
"The one you're cheering for took a hit," Nyx said with venom in her words.
"I'm cheering for them to kill each other," Proxy replied. "She's still shooting, so."
At the far end of the tunnel, the exit hatch waited inside a circle of pale grey morning light leaking through its edges.
Proxy lifted it carefully, just enough to look. Safe.
He pushed the hatch open and climbed out.
The swordsman had the tactical officer pinned against the crate.
The right blade was horizontal across his chest at collarbone height, chrome pressing into the vest hard enough that the material visibly compressed. The tactical officer's back was flat against the dented metal panel of the crate. His feet were slightly off the ground.
His sidearm was gone. His free hand gripped the wrist of the swordsman's blade arm.
The swordsman's right thigh was soaked dark where the tactical officer had shot him earlier.
The leg still worked, but every step contained a subtle hitch that suggested the muscle was deeply unhappy about doing its job.
His left blade mount had stopped being working entirely. It hung at a way that served no combat purpose whatsoever, half deployed and stuck there.
He ignored it.
The right blade remained working. He had that. He had his strenght. He had the tactical officer pinned against the crate.
For the moment, those three advantages were sufficient.
"Got you," he said conversationally, his face about six inches from the other man's. "How about that, choom."
From Proxy's right, the racer ran straight across his field of view.
She moved at full speed and hit the swordsman from the side with her shoulder lowered.
The collision had real force. Not enough to knock the swordsman off his feet, because he was heavy and braced correctly, but enough to force the blade away from the tactical officer's collarbone.
All three of them slammed sideways into the crate panel, the metal booming under the combined weight.
The racer had blood on both arms now.
Her left shoulder was worse, the jacket torn open into a wet, dark ruin.
She grabbed the swordsman's blade wrist with both hands and drove her knee sharply into the underside of his elbow.
The right blade twisted at a weird way.
The swordsman grunted in pain.
The tactical officer's boots touched the ground and he was already moving before he had fully landed.
One hand still pressed against his forearm. His eyes scanning immediately for a new position.
"Puta madre-"
The swordsman jerked his arm back.
The racer was a fraction of a second too late, and he swung her outward by the arm she had grabbed with the irritation that bordered on cyberpsychosis.
She flew for about a meter and came down hard on her side in the rough.
She rolled. Got an elbow under herself.
She spat grass.
"You and me after," she said to the tactical officer, with a tone but flirtatious and threatening.
"Ask me when we're done," the tactical officer answered.
Then he bent, picked up a broken section of tee marker from the golf course.
And threw it at the swordsman's injured thigh with the accuracy of someone who had lost his weapons and solved that problem creatively.
The concrete chunk connected.
The swordsman's leg buckled.
He didn't fall.
He caught himself against the crate panel, the chrome of his blade scraping a long gouge across the metal surface.
But the leg had stopped pretending it could tolerate further work. The muscle spasmed with the familiar protest of tissue that had been asked too many times to push for more.
Now the swordsman stood on one good leg and one compromised one, with his left blade useless and his right arm moving slower than before.
He looked at the two of them.
"Fine," he said.
Meanwhile, Proxy had both hands inside the crate.
The lock panel was already gone. The swordsman had removed it earlier.
The racer had reached in once already and taken something. Blood smeared across the interior foam where her arm had pushed through.
What remained inside the crate was still substantial.
Proxy worked quickly and quietly. His eyes stayed on the contents.
Nyx stood beside him facing outward, watching the field.
"They're going to turn around in about...," she said calmly.
"I know."
"Proxy."
"I know."
Both of his hands were still inside the crate.
He planned to take as much as he could carry in the available time, and he had no intention of rushing.
The other woman stood twenty meters away on the edge of the rough.
She was looking directly at him.
At him.