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"Oh God, what a smell."<br />
Privately the First Guardian agreed with Clarice, out loud she said nothing as they continued<br />
down the sewer tunnel. A rat the size of her foot scurried past them, heading deeper into the<br />
tunnel system. The halogen flashlight at least was powerful enough to chase most of the shadows<br />
from the area ahead of them. All four of them had their dart pistols out and were keeping a close<br />
eye on their surroundings.<br />
"Make certain you know what you're shooting at down here. There's bound to be a few workers<br />
down here somewhere."<br />
Double-checking the map they'd downloaded from Jenner's disk, Emily motioned them forward<br />
towards a left hand turn. Thankfully the tunnel only had a small stream of water flowing down its<br />
center. Still the First Guardian did her best to ignore the bits of junk and questionable things<br />
which floated down that flow of water.<br />
"There should be an access door about twenty meters ahead of us."<br />
Tom was on point, sweeping the area ahead of them. They all looked rather stupid moving down<br />
the tunnel dressed as tourists, but all of them were deadly serious.<br />
"There it is, First Guardian."<br />
Clarice and Liam were bringing up the rear, leaving the First Guardian free to check the map and<br />
deal with any traps they might run into. Carefully Emily moved up past her Honor Guard and<br />
took a careful look at the door. It looked at first glance to be a simple iron access hatch, like<br />
hundreds of others spread underneath the city of New York. On second glance it turned out to be<br />
no such thing.<br />
Frowning Emily kneeled next to the door and took out a small pack. The transponder was still<br />
transmitting, she noted thankfully. At least Angwar would know her exact position, until they got<br />
too deep underground that was.<br />
"Tom, keep an eye down the tunnel. I don't think we've been spotted yet, but that could change."<br />
"Yes, Ma'am."<br />
Carefully the First Guardian withdrew a small laser scalpel from the pack she'd brought with her,<br />
and set to work. It took about five minutes of patient cutting to get access to the door's computer<br />
system. What had looked like iron turned out to be, if not battle steel, then considerably more<br />
tough than most human steel.<br />
"Clarice, put this somewhere safe. Careful, it's still armed."
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