Chapter 5: The Robot Factory

You all get into the van. Thankfully it's pretty large so despite Mia's unnatural height, you're not too cramped in there. Mia does throw Mikael a curious glance when he makes a point to sit next to her but doesn't comment on it.
"We are going to my family's cabin," she explains in response to your questions. "It's on Munsö, near the north end of the island. But I don't think he's in the cabin."
As she's talking, she's unfolding a map she found in the van's glove compartment and pointing out the location of the cabin on it to you. It'll take you a while to drive there and you'll have to take the ferry as well.
"My father used to tell me stories of how he never felt at home anywhere except in those old Loop tunnels. And that even after the Flood, he went down there sometimes. Apparently, there's an old robot factory down in the tunnels, somewhere near the cabin. If he's going to choose any place to try and... you know, I think that's it." She takes a deep breath. "We need to be fast. Let's hope he hasn't destroyed the vials yet. And that we get there not too long after him."

The drive goes surprisingly well. The checkpoints Krafta has set up don't even force you to stop anymore, only to slow down so they can look inside your vehicle and make sure Järnek isn't there. Apparently, finding infected students just isn't a priority anymore right now.
After a pretty long and tense drive, you arrive at the Järnek family cabin. It's pitch black outside with only the headlights of the van lighting up the place. The house is dark as well. Next to it, there's a large black car parked that you recognize and Mia identifies as Järnek's.

In the light of your headlights, you see a whole bunch of fresh footsteps in the snow around the house but it's difficult to make out any pattern or direction in them without getting out of the car. The front door to the cabin is open.

Sabine quickly hops out of the van and begins looking at the foot patterns in the snow, with her mini-maglight. "Where is this robot factory, Mia? You said he probably wouldn't be in the cabin." She asks, as her every word sends plumes of her cold breath into the air before her face.

Stina waits for the others to get off the van, while searching somewhere to leave the vehicle so it is not in plain sight.
She scans around to see if there are any outbuildings behind which to park it, or neighbouring houses, or even a thick copse of trees.

Mikael gets out of the van once they come to a stop and rubs at his eyes, realizing how tired his body is. "I think we should check the cabin for anything that might help, then these tracks might lead the way for where the Rektor went."

she asks Mia "Any idea why your father would go into the cabin first, and then exit again?" She points at Mikael at the cabin. "Do you think if you went in there you could tell if your father took something from it? Keys... or something..."

Henry stands apart for now as the others go through the scene. Disaster would strike if they had been followed unknowingly, or perhaps if Mia had meant for them to be followed.

Henry watches back the way they came, shielding himself as much as possible from the cold. A thousand eyes could be watching him from just beyond the trees. It was always unsettling, being out among nature. But now there was the unnatural to worry about.

Sabine sets off on a quick jog toward the cabin to look for anything that may give them a better idea of what has transpired and to keep warm. She enters through the open front door and looks around.

Stina follows Sabine's example and starts to look for where the tracks might lead.

Sabine follows the tracks out behind the house and into the woods. The further she follows them, the more she gets the impression that Järnek must have been carrying something very large and probably pretty heavy that occasionally slid along the ground, smearing the tracks he left behind.
Still, she manages to track the footsteps to a large metal covering in the ground. It's open and as she peeks inside, it seems to lead into a large, dark tunnel. She gets some flashbacks to the bunker where she and her friends encountered the machine fetus half a year ago. Though, thankfully, there is no pained moaning in these tunnels, as far as she can tell.

Stina, meanwhile, goes through the cabin. Mia sticks with her, looking around and trying to see what her father was doing in here. Together, they enter a small, cramped storage room. There is a large rubber boat in the storage, making the tiny space feel even smaller. Stina also finds a couple of industrial flashlights in here.

"That's strange," Mia remarks as you're regarding the storage room. "There should be two rubber boats in here. There were always two."

"Then, I have a feeling we should take the remaining boat and the flashlights." Sabine responds to Mia's revelation. She grabs the boat and struggles to pull it clear of the cramped space and get it out of the cabin. Hopefully with Mia's assistance.

Following the path of the others, she finds them looking down into an open metal hatch. Sabine is relieved that this one is not filled with the agonizing sounds of a machine fetus.

Mikael follows the footsteps up to the point where he finds the large metal cover. He pauses and listens before returning to the others. Seeing them with the rubber boat, he speaks up, "Rektor Järnek took the other boat I think, brought it with him into some sort of tunnel. It looked like he was dragging something heavy with him, then his tracks end."

She looks down into the passage under the metal covering. "Well, I don't like it... but if that's where he's gone..." she starts climbing down into the tunnel, helping the others to lower the rubber boat.

She turns on her flashlight and shines it around the passage.

She tugs and manoeuvres to try fit the rubber thing in the crammed underground space.
"This thing's heavy... Left a bit... no, MY left! "

It's dark and smells old and rotten down here. As Stina climbs down the old ladder and shines her flashlight around, you all find that the tunnel is flooded. You can't tell how deep the water is but seeing as you can't see the ground, it can't be too shallow. That's probably why Järnek took a boat from the cabin as well.

The others lower down the large boat while Stina tries to hold on from below and guide it down on the water. It's not too heavy but it's really large and unwieldy, so that turns out to not be a very easy task, but working together, you manage to heft it down and put it down on the water without Stina falling off her uneasy handhold and into the water herself. From there, it's not too difficult for you all to climb into the boat one after the other.

Once you're all settled in the boat, you look around. It's dark and wet down here. The water shifts occasionally as if there are creatures lurking under the surface. Sitting still and looking around, you see moving lights far away in one direction, along with the echoing sound of an engine rumbling. In the other direction, you don't see anything but you think you hear very faint sounds of music coming from that direction.

"Ooh, this is creepy, isn’t it?" Henry whispers to the others.

"But I guess we know which way to go. The missing flashlights from above must be that way…" the boy says pointing to the light in the distance.