Entering the Tombstone, Maria and Free carefully maneuvered their DW through the building--- the entry floor was already picked clean by the Divers before they had gotten there; leaving it nearly empty of furniture or tech.
The ceiling of this floor was tall, allowing them to pop their heads over the cockpit.
"It's only been half an hour since the operation started." Free pointed out.
"Quick and clean work, it's how it should be," Maria answered his doubts.
At the end of the room was a large shaft, peering over the edge of it revealed a seemingly bottomless pit. There were rappel cords situated in and out of the shaft indicating that the Maintenance team had already set up the method to bring cargo up or down and out of the Tombstone.
However, the rappelling system was too small for the DW, meaning that Maria and Free had to use the alternative method.
"For the floor that they need us, they've likely left a marker for us to find," Maria said as she prepared the DW for the descent.
The DW crept up over the edge of the shaft and through a swift pivot thanks to its omni-joints, its legs were facing forward but the cockpit was facing backward.
Then, it stretched one of its legs to meet the other side of the shaft's wall. The cockpit was now situated in the middle of the shaft.
Free couldn't help but feel his stomach drop from seeing how far the darkness of the shaft went as he looked down below.
"Don't stare too long or you'll lose your nerve," Maria warned him.
"Do you ever get used to this?" Free asked.
"Hell no, but the fear keeps my mind sharp."
Maria then began the descent, instead of using the joystick she used a pressure gauge that controlled the force of the legs.
With it, she decreased the pressure- the DW had begun to sink. And with it, she turned on the DW's foglight, its focused beam penetrating the pitch black at a pinpoint.
It was a painfully slow process, with the DW's feet scraping against the walls of the shaft. Free had half a mind to close his ears from the sound, but he didn't want to give the impression that he was weak to Maria.
Little by little, the DW passed lower floors.
Many of the rooms were full of sand, their treasures forever encased by The Mother's will. But some were open, yet untouched by the Divers in the operation.
One such floor had something dangling from the edge of the shaft, catching Free's eye.
"What's that?" Free muttered.
It was a mummified corpse, a pre-Big Flash human whose body had desiccated after death from the desert's arid environment. From what Free could tell, it was a woman--- she wore what looked like a long white coat.
As the DW passed the floor that had the body, the leg's force caused it to fall--- Free saw the woman disappear down below, the impact of it hitting the ground rung violently; they were nearly at the bottom of the Tombstone.
"Rest with the Mother." Free whispered to himself.
Maria then decreased the pressure of the legs of the DW, increasing its sinking speed in return.
They sunk for what felt like another ten minutes before finally reaching the bottom of the shaft.
What they saw at the bottom as their foglight focused on it made Free nearly vomit.
It was a pile of them, pre-Big Flash corpses. The stench of their bodies made his eyes water, even in their mummified state their mangled bodies that had been pulverized by the impact of the fall had turned most of them into rotten sludge.
Maria said nothing as she maneuvered the DW to avoid the pile, narrowly missing the sludge as the DW's feet grappled onto the docking point of the bottom level.
The DW then pulled itself in, resting at the entry point.
"Tombstones, they are what they are." Maria sighed solemnly.
"I didn't think it'd be that bad." Free said.
"It isn't, this was a lot- even for me. Whatever had happened here during the Big Flash, well... it was bad, very bad." Maria cleared her throat.
Reeling from the shock of what they had just witnessed, they both noticed a dim light just ahead of them on the floor. The rappel cords that had been following them down in the descent ended there as well.
"I guess that's our sign." Free said.
"Yeah," Maria noted.
The darkness of the bottom floor was overwhelming, even the powerful foglight of the DW struggled to make a dent in the inky void. From what they could make of the bottom floor, it was different from the others. Massive in comparison, the ceiling was triple the size of the others.
"Can you see anything?" Free whispered to Maria, afraid of the unknown in the dark.
"Nah, just keep your eyes on the lantern; we're nearly there."
As they got closer to the lantern, long tables began to appear within their light. They were organized in rows, with computers set atop all of them and chairs in various disarray behind each one. Expecting to see corpses tied to these chairs yet seeing none was unnerving for Free.
"Eerie." Free muttered.
Finally, the DW had arrived at where the lantern was. Pointing their foglight, it ran up a solid gate that stood behind the lantern's light; its size trumping the DW's.
It was open, and from within it, they could hear distant conversation.
Maria suddenly stopped the DW, her body running rigid.
"I don't like this." She hissed.
"What? What's the matter!?" Free asked.
Maria turned off her foglight and set the DW to standby mode, it dying down to an idle hum as the machine stood still; she covered Free's mouth before he could protest.
"Shh, listen. Call me crazy, but why aren't there other Divers here yet? Something is off, and my instincts are going crazy " Maria whispered, only letting go of Free's mouth once he nodded his head.
They both sat still in the overwhelming darkness of the cockpit, with only the lantern's light dimly illuminating the hull of the DW. They sat as still as they could, the only other noise being the groaning of the DW engine on idle.
Free could hear his heartbeat as he focused his hearing, gripping the bars of his chair as hard as he could to curb his nerves.
They could now hear what was being said behind the gate more clearly.
"This is impossible, technology like this shouldn't exist!" It was Gristle having an outburst; he sounded furious.
"We would be repeating the same mistakes our ancestors had committed if we were to- AGH!"
He was abruptly cut off by the sound of something crashing.
Free felt his blood run cold, was Gristle being attacked? Before he could jump out of the cockpit, it was Maria who forcibly pushed him back down into his seat; nearly knocking the air out of him.
He had never seen Maria any more angrier in his life than the way she glared at him. But her anger wasn't directed at him, it was at what was happening behind the gate.
Free sunk into his seat, embarrassed over his immaturity. Maria had known Gristle nearly her entire life; she too was an orphan. What mattered more right now was to figure out what was happening before acting, something that is an integral doctrine to how Crawler Crews operate.
Another voice spoke up behind the gate, it was another man --- Gideon's.
"Take it easy, old man. You're at no age to be getting uppity." He mockingly said.
"Y-You don't know what you're doing! We couldn't begin to imagine the extent of destruction this thing could enact if re-activated by our hands." Gristle's voice was wavering, but his pride of being the Crawler's Head Engineer kept the fire in his voice; he wasn't going to back down.
"Destruction?" A woman's voice spoke, Free didn't recognize it but Maria flinched hearing it.
"Head Engineer, do you genuinely believe that? That we would allow it to once again destroy the world?"
"That's not the point-"
"The point is, Head Engineer, is that with it, we could save the world." Free could see Maria's entire body tense up, every muscle under the dimness of the lantern was bulging with a growing rage underneath her.
"We could revive it; finally be free of The Mother and her cruel embrace. The sheer energy it could produce, it would rival even the Garden's!"
"Preposterous! Ooph!" Gristle's let out a sharp yelp, it sounded like he was hit.
"Please, Gristle--- don't make this any harder than it has to be." This time, it was Lucy who spoke; she sounded empathetic.
"Pity that you don't share our vision, you knew exactly what we have been looking for this entire time yet here you are, rebelling at the last moment. Over what, exactly? Morals? Maybe you would prefer humanity to forever be trapped in this perpetual dark age. Or has raising that unfortunate boy softened your head; where is your edge, old friend?"
"You're going to damn us all, Bayonsik!" Gristle screamed, his voice was hoarse from pain.
Free felt his blood run cold, it was Bayonsik who had been speaking this entire time. He had never once heard her speak before.
"You cannot create life from a weapon of mass destruction, these things- the Megas--- they should be left buried in the sands until the end of time!"
"I think, Head Engineer, that you're no longer welcome to this discussion. Goodbye, and may you Rest with The Mother; hopefully you'll be one of the last few who ever will." Bayonsik snapped her fingers.
"Wait, w-what are you doing!? Gideon, unhand me, UNHAND ME YOU BASTARD!!" Gristle's scream curdled into a sickening snap--- followed by a deafening silence.
Free looked at Maria, lost over what to do. But she wasn't looking at him.
She was instead leaning her entire body on the joystick, aiming it directly ahead into the gate.
"GIDEON!!!" She screamed in rage as the DW charged forward at full speed.