Rabbit Records

"Jean, be careful!" the guy shouted from a distance trying to catch up with his friend. Meanwhile the lady ahead happily hops through the rubble of what remains of a crumbled building now overrun with green vegetation. "There could still be a working security trap there!" the guy added but he only got a small chuckle as an answer. "Relax, Stark. I'm being careful as--AAHH!" Jean yells as the pile of rubble she's standing on suddenly collapses.

"Jean!" Stark screams in horror and bolts towards Jean's position. He got there as fast as he can, he looks down the hole and relief washes over him as he finds his friend safe and conscious among the rubble. She only got a few scratches on her and thankfully there's no bleeding or broken bones. Jean smiles apologetically as she looks up at him. Stark sighed at himself and jumps down as well. When Stark reached the floor, he was met with a surprised look from Jean. "What?" he innocently asks.

"Why did you jumped down as well? Who's gonna pull us up now?!" she exclaims with worry and Stark's jaw drops down as he realize his mistake. They both look up and sees that it's impossible to climb it up to get out of their current position. After a short silence, Stark suggested, "Let's try to find other way. You have your phone with you?"

"I think it broke when I fell." Jean whips out her phone from her pocket and confirms it to be broken and no longer functioning. "How about yours?" she asks back. "Didn't bring it with me." he flat out said, earning a slightly frustrated look on Jean's face. "I forgot you're not really fond of these devices." she whispers. Silence ensues between them again as they thought of a new way. Upon looking, Jean seems to found a path hidden among the rubble, she calls Stark's attention. "This might only leads us deeper below instead." he commented. "Well, I say it's worth a shot taking a look. Aren't you interested?" she questions her friend.

"In the possibility of getting trapped or buried underground? No." he spats and Jean gave him the look. "Come on, scaredy cat. Aren't we here to check this place out in the first place?"

"You said you only want to take around the site, not on the site itself. I only came with you because I'm worried that your alone." he explains and before he realizes what he said in the last part of his sentence, Jean was already giving him that look, the other look. "Oh no, I wonder if you have another choice but to follow me here as well because you're worried of me." she says playfully and starts walking towards the dark pathway. "Jean, wait! Stop!"

---

Jean triumphs over her friend. With a portable light orb with them, they carefully tread the pathway. As they proceed, the path gets wider with less debris blocking their way until they reached a rather wide hallway. While looking at it, they found traces in all corners that this very hallway was once engulfed with flame although the strong concreate material made it impossible to completely burn and destroy it down. Each step they took with caution, their eyes vigilantly looking around, they don't know what might suddenly show up. But hours passed and they found nothing worth noting. It's an empty hallway, there were doors of course, all of them shut locked and far from each other. Their curiosity grows by the second. It was until then that they saw an open door at the far end of the hallway. On closer inspection, the part of the door responsible for shutting it was destroyed leaving it unlocked. They pushed the door and entered the room.

It was not completely empty at all. On the corners they say computer controls, working tables, and drawers. There's also a broken glass wall which leads to another room. "What is this place?" Jean asks herself. Her small steps brought her towards the working desk where she found a burned down computer and what seems to be remains of burned files. But then her keen eyes noticed something among the ash and dust. She reached out and brought it towards her.

"An unburned file...?" she whispers again to herself. There was nothing on the cover and so she opt to open the file. To her surprise, she found nothing inside

...except for a rectangular card with embossed numbers on the corner.

HK-3373-R39

What is this thing?

"Hey Stark!" she called out in which her friend immediately responded by going to her. "Found something?" he asked after seeing the file on Jean's hand. "Do you know what's this?" she showed the thin rectangular object. Stark's eyes narrowed as he scrutinized the thing. It didn't take him that long to recognize it. "It looks like a memory bank." Jean proceeded to give her companion the look of asking for more details. Stark sighed.

"I have a feeling that this place was used to be an underground facility. Could be an secret government base or something, not entirely sure. It's either got destroyed during the Kami no shūkaku or earlier than that."

"An accident that caused an explosion?"

"That's a possibility, too. Anyway, if this is really something that belongs to the government then this memory bank must have belonged to someone who works here. A researcher, perhaps. I saw one before, they keep memory banks, well, to store information." Jean nodded and placed her gaze back at the memory bank.

"This can be useful." she said and Stark immediately reacted negatively to it. "Jean, we can't just take a piece of object from a place like this. If we are right that this is owned by the government, that memory bank could contain something crucial. That would literally put us in danger!" he argued.

"But this could also help the faction. Maybe it has the information that the faction needed for their cause." Jean refuted, clutching the memory bank in her fist.

"You're still supporting the faction?! We agreed that we will never associate ourselves with them! They can't be trusted!"

Jean slowly calmed down as she was reminded of their deal. She looks down, reconsidering her thoughts. Finally, she sighed and met Stark's eyes.

"Fine, I'm sorry." she apologetically said, shoulders dropping. Stark's eyes softened too. "Just... leave it where you found it, okay. Let's focus on finding a way out." he taps Jean's shoulder and went back on surveying the surroundings, trusting that Jean will do as she's told.

Soon enough, they found a scaffold ladder leading upwards. They climbed on it until they reached a steel trap door in which they finally made out of the fallen facility.

--

Jean blankly stares at the ceiling. She is now safely back on her room after being trapped in that underground for almost 5 hours. Thankfully, no one suspected on their disappearance as both of them also vowed to keep their occasionally going out of the permitted zone a secret. Her thoughts swirls until she realized the small piece of object she's been fiddling in her fingers.

She brought it close to her face to look at it again.

HK-3373-R39

Giving in to her own temptations, she grabbed her Mind-Peeker, inserted the memory back into the slot and then activating the device. She calmly laid on her bed, letting in the surge of energy and information into her mind.