"Where are we?" Serah asked.
Parrino allowed his eyes to adjust to the near darkness. "Service tunnel between the transit route and a storage depot, I suspect," he said at last. In what little light there was, he made out rows of crates stacked ten or fifteen meters in the air all around them, making something of a makeshift labyrinth in the gigantic loading dock. A series of dim lights flicked on, indicating the path to take through the warehouse.
Serah's eyes widened, and she stepped back two paces. "Who is doing this?"
"Whoever it is, they want us alive," Parrino thought for a moment, "or at least you anyway. I may be lucky because they couldn't crash the aircar with you in it."
"So, do they want to help me or capture me? Maybe we're better off waiting here for Division 4 to catch up with us."
"You want answers? They're this way. You want to give up and stay ignorant in a holding cell in Paris? Wait here." He didn't wait for the response and instead motioned for Serah to follow him as he cautiously led them through the illuminated path.
The lights led them to a large open area where automatic cranes were loading a boxy freight vehicle. The door to the freighter's pilot cabin opened as they approached, and the interior cockpit lit up. Parrino signaled for Serah to hold back and cautiously approached the door. He peeked inside, noted the cabin was empty, and slowly started to climb in, half suspecting the door would shut abruptly and decapitate him. "Come look at this." He gestured to Serah that they were safe for the moment and pointed to the heads-up display in the freighter's cockpit. A map of France was displayed on the navigation console. It highlighted their current position in Lille and four points on the Mediterranean coast.
Serah pulled up her datapad and began searching for something.
"Stay off the Phrame," Parrino warned. He leaned in to see that she had a map of France up and was attempting to identify the destinations indicated on the map.
"Don't worry. I locked it in isolation mode back at Croydon. It's not connected to anything." She waved him off. "I've got this. You check out the area and make sure we're safe," she said, climbing into the hauler.
Parrino cautiously circled the car, making sure they were alone.
"Hé, toi là-bas!" a voice came from the darkness behind them. "Qu'est-ce que tu fais ici?"
Parrino gulped. He had a pretty good idea of what had been said but did not know how to respond.
"Tout va bien," Serah responded from the freighter's cabin with a near-perfect accent, at least to his ear. "Le contremaître nous a envoyé pour vérifier l'endommagement d'une des palettes bosselée uniquement sur la caisse et non sur le contenu." She climbed out of the cabin, holding the datapad in front of her and pretending to type frantically on it with one hand.
"He's speaking French," Parrino offered.
Serah smiled slightly, "A lot of French people do."
"Yes, but what are you telling him?"
"A passable bluff, I hope."
"À quelle caisse fais-tu référence?" the dock worker responded. "J'ai personnellement inspecté tous ces éléments et aucun n'a été endommagé."
Serah's face turned sour. "Maybe not quite passable," she muttered to Parrino, then yelling back to the Frenchman, "Celui-ci, B78274." The man grumbled under his breath, something neither of them could make out, and then walked back into the office area behind him. Serah exhaled a sign of relief. "I think that went well," she smiled.
Unconvinced, Parrino pointed to her datapad, indicating she should return to her research. He slowly walked toward the dock office, watching the man inside move across the room and access a computer console.
"No, no, no," he muttered under his breath and darted toward the office. Behind him, he heard the roar of machinery coming to life, and the lights throughout the warehouse kicked on to full illumination. Serah sat in the doorway to the freighter's cockpit, apparently noting the change in scenery but oblivious to its significance.
Parrino screamed at her, "Serah! Get away from there." He gestured toward a narrow space between two tall stacks of heavy crates.
Confused, Serah quickly scurried away as a long crane arm swung right past the position where she had been standing just a few seconds before.
"Where's the manual override?!" Parrino screamed at the dock worker, who stood transfixed at the spectacle.
"Quelle?" the man answered back. A split second later, a large crate barreled through the window next to him, exploding the console and crushing him underneath its weight.
Parrino threw himself backward from the wreckage and rolled into a corner, feeling relatively safe. He assessed the situation as quickly as he could. The control room was smashed. For the moment, Serah was pinned in a corner but safe from the robotic loading arms, which moved on tracks along the ceiling and walls. Whoever was controlling them was using the dock scanners and video. Parrino noted the four transmitters atop the four cranes' manual control booths in each corner of the room. As long as those were active, he and Serah could be tracked and targeted.
While the master console was smashed, each crane arm could still be operated from its pilot seat, though most operations were simple enough to automate. He analyzed the room and decided that while the one nearest would do the trick, the opposite end of the room would be easier to get to, given the distance at which the crane arms could throw crates. Meanwhile, he needed to keep the attention of their assailant on himself and not Serah, who was, for the moment, undetectable in the dark corner between rows.
Summoning what energy he had left and running on pure, blind adrenaline, Parrino leaped from the command center. "Hey, asshole!" he shouted, waving his hands as he darted through the middle of the warehouse.
Instantly, all four crane arms stopped what they were doing and seemed to move toward him. In a panic, he shifted to his left, ducking into one of the artificial alleys made by stacked containers, keeping in mind the vantage point of the cameras and sensors in the corners of the room, and knowing as soon as he reached the safety of the crates, he was in a relative blind spot. The robotic arms, following his momentum, slammed into the crates next to him but lacked sufficient force to knock them over and pin him in. He congratulated himself for his lucky, on-the-fly calculations.
Having not been crushed, despite the best efforts of the arms, Parrino scrambled along the outer wall of the warehouse and made his way toward the corner, where he spotted the pilot chair for one of the arms ten meters away. Despite their best efforts, their attacker could no longer see Serah or himself and was currently powerless.
Without pausing to think, Parrino scurried on all fours toward the pilot's chair, confident that he could remain undetected until he entered the cabin. Then, he would have only seconds to disable the other three. He flung open the cabin door and launched himself into the cockpit.
Desperate, he fumbled with the controls before finding the override and taking control of the giant robotic arm. He played with the levers for a few seconds, acclimating himself to the controls, and once he felt comfortable enough, slammed them forward, sending the lifter arm across the ceiling to the far end of the room near the now-smashed control room. On the console in front of him, the crane's display outlined each crate and box on the warehouse floor for easy selection.
Parrino selected a large, heavy-looking metallic crate as the arm passed by and hit the "Pick Up" selector. Without pausing, the arm swung around, effortlessly grabbed the oversized box, and continued on its trek to the opposite end of the warehouse. Mentally keeping track of the arm's position in his head, Parrino counted down and, at the last possible second before the crane reached the end of its traversable track, opened the arm claws, sending the payload hurling through the air straight into the corner of the warehouse, where it collided with another crane's cockpit and exploded with a very satisfying concussive blast.
Without pausing, he then shifted the crane laterally toward the opposite corner, this time more cautiously, as he knew Serah was still crouched in shadows somewhere in the vicinity. As the arm approached the second control center, he punched the override, rotated the grappling arm horizontally, and smashed it through the protective plating and into the cockpit. With a shower of sparks and a groaning of machinery, a second loader arm went limp and hung motionless in the air.
With little time left, Parrino pulled back on the directional controls and slid his crane across the warehouse toward him. In the smoke and shadow of the two wrecked, burning control platforms, he frantically looked for the position of the third and final crane. It flew out of a thick cloud of smoke on a high-speed collision course with the cockpit he was sitting in. He made the necessary calculations in his head and at the last minute, leaped from the platform as the hulking arm shattered the glass and control panel, along with a large chunk of the concrete wall directly behind him. A split second later, his crane's arm swung back to its base position, pinning the attacking arm to the wall and effectively immobilizing the last attacker.
The whine of machinery and groaning of steel being pushed to its breaking point told him his opponent was not yet defeated and inspired him to his feet. He bolted across the tops of crates, jumping over rows and heading back toward where he had last seen Serah. He had cleared half the distance when the sound of an explosion knocked him off his feet. He heard Serah scream in terror from the corner of the room.
The loading arm on top of the freighter had suddenly sprung to life and was wildly swinging at a metallic box on top of the smashed control room. After two passes, it made contact, and the box exploded with a shower of sparks. The room went dark, aside from the lights of a half-dozen electrical fires and the freighter's running lights. Parrino then watched as the relay arm swung back to its base position and began smashing at a relay antenna on the top of the freighter.
Parrino dusted himself off and ran across the warehouse toward where he thought he heard Serah shouting for him in panic. He found her curled up in a corner, in a near-fetal position, frantically scrolling through her datapad, calling his name. She made a small yelp when he touched her shoulder, and she looked up at him. "What's happening?"
"I wish I knew," Parrino answered between gulps of air. "As near as I can tell, the freighter is trying to disable any means of tracking us after we leave. The crane arms are trying to kill us. Does that help?"
"As long as leaving enters into this somewhere," Serah nodded.
Parrino caught sight of the robot arm detaching itself from the rubble in the opposite corner of the room. He estimated only seconds before it would be free and headed toward them. "Damnit. It looks like you'll be on your own from here on out." He pushed her toward the freighter and started towards the giant loading arm. "I'll draw its attention and keep it occupied. You sneak onto the freighter and get the hell out of here before it sees you."
Serah froze in a panic. "I can't let you do that, and I can't do this without you!"
"Yes, you can. Trust your instincts and keep your head straight. You can do this." Taking a chance, he grabbed her shoulders and gave her a quick kiss. She couldn't very well deny him that. He was about to sacrifice himself for her, after all. Serah smiled and nodded, then made a mad dash for the freighter cockpit, keeping low between the rows of crates.
Parrino, screaming frantically and throwing whatever debris he could find at the sensor camera on the advancing crane arm, darted into the maze of crates toward what he hoped would be the controls for the crane. He grabbed a handheld scanner from a bench, leaped up three stacked crates to a higher vantage point, and threw the device with all his might at the sensor array atop the crane's cockpit. He was just a hair off-center but was sure he had the attention of whoever was controlling it. To punctuate the insult, he began running across the tops of the crates toward the arm, waving his arms and screaming every obscenity he could think of.
He heard the freighter lift off, and the absence of any explosion told him Serah had made it to safety for the time being. The crane arm advanced down its track directly toward him, the menacing whine of the machinery growing louder in his ears. He was a sitting duck with no cover available while he stood on top of the crates. His choices were to be decapitated by the swinging arm, be crushed to a pulp when the arm toppled the stack over onto him, or break at least one leg jumping down off the crates. Instinctively, he chose the latter option and leaped for the open space between rows. He hit the ground, attempted to roll with the impact, and felt his knee give out from under him. He looked up and watched the tower of crates above him tip and fall.