Back entrance to the facility, Ibis Island.

11:28pm

It was the third time, without counting when her group arrived, that she had gone back to the backyard. One would think that there wouldn’t be any more for Nayoung to investigate there but they would be wrong. As luck dictates, Nayoung had to go there once more to enter the B1 backup generator.

The map of the facility was already fuzzy in her mind, she only remembered clearly the first floor, maybe bits of the second and third if she were to dig up a little bit more of information, but if she had to be truthful, she didn’t remember even the slightest of details about the three subfloors the facility had. Thankfully for her, Siyeon seemed to have glorious memorization skills, as she had been the one to inform Nayoung of the location of the B1 generator before she departed the control room with Julia.

Turns out, the locked metal gate in the back entrance led directly to the ladder that went downwards to the generator.

And there they were, alone, Julia and her.

Nayoung wouldn’t exactly call her a distrustful person, maybe cynical, but not unnecessarily wary. But she couldn’t deny that there was something about Julia that bothered her.

The girl was supposed to be a guard – or so Nayoung inferred, given the blue uniform Julia donned – but she lacked the discipline guards usually had, quite the contrary, since it was apparent she had a cheerful, mischievous disposition.

“Are we going down?”- Julia asked, looking down at the ladder as Nayoung drew closer to her after going through the gate’s threshold.

“You first, I’ll cover our back”- Nayoung replied simply, receiving a nod in response.

“Sure”- And with that, Julia leaped down, disregarding the ladder completely, before landing with a feline finesse on the ground below. She made almost no noise as she started walking around the area, inspecting it mutely.

It surprised Nayoung a bit because, like she was saying, Julia lacked the discipline, but her skills were uncommonly polished for a run-of-the-mill security guard. A few snaps brought Nayoung back to earth once more, as she looked down again to find Julia giving her a thumbs up. The area was clear, so she jumped down.

Nayoung and Julia enter: Backup generator room, Facility 1B, Ibis Island.

11:29pm

The room itself was nothing you wouldn’t expect for a generator room. OId-looking, musty and dusty, with a smell that instantly gave away the lack of maintenance. The backup generators didn’t seem to be used that often, that alone was clear.

“You handle yourself well… for an ordinary guard.”- As both her and Julia advanced towards the generator, Nayoung couldn’t help but comment on Julia’s set of skills.

“Don’t underestimate the profession sister”- She answered without even sparing a glance at Nayoung, but the Echo division leader could see the smirk perfectly, which only served to fuel her cynicisms. - “I have just as much training as you.”

“It shows…”

“So, do you actually know how to turn this big thing?”- Julia asked, looking at the huge rusted machine from top to bottom. Contrary to all the cutting-edge piece of technology the facility had, the generator could have been mistaken from something right out of the eighties.

Big, unnecessarily convoluted and probably REALLY noisy.

“If we are lucky, we only need to connect the fuses and…”- Nayoung checked the main operating panel, which was obviously unpowered.

“Yeah, no luck, one of them is busted…”- Julia cut Nayoung’s sentence as she motioned towards a slim glass pane, not too far from their position, that shielded the four fuses. Indeed, one of them was curved, and Nayoung had to bite back an expletive.

She didn’t really have the time to play mechanic.

“There should be a spare one over here somewhere…”- Julia trailed off, searching the rest of the room, as Nayoung noticed a common metal door nearby.

She walked up to it and tried the doorknob, locked, she wondered if it lead towards the rest of the first sublevel. If only it was open maybe they could skip over the entire “turn on the power to gain access” thing.

But that was just wishful thinking from her part, of course the door to a giant generator would be locked. She didn’t know why, but she felt the need to voice it to her companion.

“This door is locked”- Nayoung said, hearing footsteps drawing near from behind. - “Maybe your head is hard enough to ram the door down? Guard don’t usually use theirs, do they?”

She grinned, she was never the type to throw backhanded remarks at people out of the blue, but the military training certainly had inculcated that habit onto her, an habit she had eventually embraced as she started to enjoy it.

Most people usually just hung their heads low, not saying anything.

“Listen, I know your asshatness probably comes from all the military training”- But Julia wasn’t too keen on that train of action - “But It’d be cool if you stopped saying something y every two seconds, I work better without the underhanded insults.”

“What? You-?”- It certainly caught Nayoung off guard, as her grin transformed into her trademark scowl, she turned around ready to lash out.

“Wait, before you punch me, let me clarify something.”- Julia already had her hands in the air, taking a few steps back to avoid Nayoung’s imminent wrath - “I want to get off this island just as much as you do, remember the girl that was with me? Well, she is my friend, and I want her out of this island just as much as you want your team out, so for the sake of them, what do you think about keeping things chill between us? No more messing around, just intense focus, right?”

“I…”- It didn’t take long for Nayoung to notice she was being the jackass. Maybe she should start giving people a break? Things weren’t exactly easy for the others, and she was sure Siyeon was starting to hate her guts. - “Sure, I guess I was just a bit suspicious, can’t help it, it’s practically in my DNA”

“Nice! We don’t need to be friends”- Julia smiled, giving Nayoung a thumbs up as she laughed - “We just to get along for now, besides, it’s not like I’m going to pull out a gun and shoot you seconds after you turn your back to me, I need you alive just as much as you need me alive”

“Sure… Now let’s focus on finding the fuse”

“Already did, it was back in an old charging station”- Raising her left hand, Julia showed Nayoung a lantern-like fuse whose four metal pins were still intact, though far from shimmering - “With a bit of luck, this thing hasn’t overloaded or something”

“Good job, let’s get this thing to work then.”- Giving her a nod of approval, Nayoung started walking towards the glass panel near all the circuitry.

“I think I know how this works”- Julia rushed to her side, pressing a few buttons that opened a small compartment in which she placed the fuse – “You just need to swap the places of the old fuse and the new one, fit it with the color scheme… and… voila!”

With one last button press, the four fuses fit in place as the fifth one was discarded, thrown down a tube that led somewhere else. As each fuse was connected, the generator to their left emitted a green light. Once the four fuses had been set in place, a fifth light started shinning but the machine remained static.

“What now?”- Nayoung asked, unsure.

“This!”- Julia went right for the ON button and, after a few never-ending seconds, the power unit roared to life, emitting eardrum-splitting sound that could only be described as incessant vibrations.

“The sound this thing makes is hellish! Damnit!”- Julia spoke, more like shouted, as she backed off from the energy generator.

“Let’s get out of here before this gives me a migraine.”- Nayoung answered, motioning for Julia to follow her as she moved towards the ladder.

Nayoung and Julia enter: Back entrance of the facility, Ibis Island.

11:33pm

*BEEP* *BEEP*

Just as she had finished climbing up the ladder, an incoming message came through her radio. She looked back, checking to see if Julia was following her – which she was – before she answered the message.

“Hey, boss?”- Kyungwon’s voice came through the device.

“Yes Kyungwon, what is it? Do we have power yet?”- Nayoung answered, exiting the small area with Julia trotting behind her, both moving