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You squat down right by the open hatch leading god knows where. Digging out in your INVENTORY, you find the item you're looking for. Your aerial drone promptly shoots down into the murky abyss...and it sure does take a while to travel down.
Looking on the small screen on the remote you control the damn thing with, it goes down 25 feet. Then 30. Then 35. It quickly becomes disconcerting how deeply it goes down and all the screen is showing is black.
It's not that the screen is off and, hell, these things are built in with low light vision so you should be able to see something but all you see on the feed is pitch black darkness.
Until it FINALLY hits the bottom at 45 feet, the feed actually shows something besides murky darkness! Only two or three feet away from the bottom of the ladder is what you suspected from the noise you were hearing: A river.
Despite this part of I-Corp being colder than an Android's nipples, there's a steady and unrelenting stream of steaming hot and <span class="mu-b">oddly black</span> water flowing down south. The river itself seems to be curving down very slightly down but it's so minute you could be convinced you're seeing things.
A small rowboat made out of wood sits right by the small platform the ladder ends at. It's tied to a metal pole with some sturdy rope. There's no identifying marks or anything on the boat and the only way to proceed seems to be either north or south down the river so you just pick one at random.
Heading up north, all you can see for a good 30 feet or so is the smooth stone tunnel that the river is flowing down. Someone must've carved this ages ago but you're not a fantasy dwarf so you can't say anything more than that. The steam only seems to get hotter but before your drone can overheat, you see something: Another platform!
The platform has a utility tunnel staircase carved into the stone which leads up to somewhere. A metal plate is stamped next to the tunnel in question. Three symbols are stamped on it: A circle with three arrows pointing out from the center, a double whole note with a lightning bolt running through it, and a clock.
[SEEKER OF THE CITY] D-Corp, M-Corp, and T-Corp? T-Corp makes sense, this is a clock tower, but the other two don't.
[SEEKER OF THE CITY] Well, no, D-Corp might. There was an anomaly containment facility, though built by P-Corp instead of D-Corp, somewhere within the general area from it.
[SEEKER OF THE CITY] M-Corp is a blank spot for me. They're mostly associated with partying it up, emboldening creatives to create amazingly impressive slop, and indulging self destructive behavior. Party animals in a corporate form.
Before you have time to dwell on this, something launches out of the river. Something thick and slimy since your Aerial Drones' lens gets smeared in something foul looking. The feed then cuts out completely.
>-AERIAL DRONE
OKAY SO THERE'S SOMETHING IN THE WATER GOOD TO KNOW! "So! Wendy! Got any idea why D, M, and T-Corp would work together?"
