When we came back down to seventh floor through a different section of the facility, I recognized parts of the route from the game and expected twisted level geometry and insane deviant attacks, but since Test Subject wasn't here warping the geometry in this timeline, everything looked pleasantly normal.

Excellent. Easy mode was even easier without white sand and black water pouring through cracks in the ceiling.

In the anime, the Test Subject part of Bone Dune Station escape was turned into its own separate episode because it was so surreal (rearranging Test Subject's brains inside Strangers machine to move his mind into the future, really?), but there's no need to go into details about that.

Well, I do want to mention the funny fact that Test Subject wasn't originally even part of the experiment that turned him into a deviant berserker in a wheelchair. He was branded as Prisoner LXII, but re-branded to Prisoner XXXIV because the guards were so annoyed by his constant nagging that he was moved ahead of the line. And it was grand vizier Llotewis visiting the station who ordered the researchers to take more risks in the experiments because Caliph wanted results...

There were many crazy-looking deviants in the cells of this wing. Most of the cells had solid doors, but in the cells with barred doors, we saw orc-like deviants licking the floor with their long tongues, a human-looking deviant wearing a spiked iron mask and mumbling, and there was one character I recognized from the game too: a chimpanzee-like deviant screaming that we shouldn't eat his brains. Fancy seeing you here, how did you stay alive so long?

The insane deviant known as Weapon Woman Lailoken wasn't here, so no need to worry about her – she was just a small female mini-boss. She was probably still roaming somewhere far north.

We came at the door of a large, barred cell where Sorry Man was kept. Rainwoman killed the only guard still left in this area with a bullet in the head, took his keys and opened the barred cell door.

And there he was, the second MC we came to help out.

Sorry Man, aka Sorry-sensei, aka Sleepwalker, aka Undying Dark Ghost, aka Kimon Lorus, aka Fake Spehir Spyrox, aka Dragon's-Head-Behind-The-Curtain. The silent and passive leader-mascot figure of the Revolutionary Movement.

He looked like a pale-faced, gaunt man dressed in all black boilersuit and black duster with tight leather straps all around. Like a goth punk mannequin or autistic dark elf.

Sorry for describing your appearance in denigrating manner, but I'm sure you would understand. I'm not going describe your appearance aloud, though; Rain would kill me.

Sorry-sensei stood in a corner of the cell, facing the north side wall. His pose reminded me of the ending scene of a certain old, found-footage witch horror film.

Speaking of corners, there was a certain inconsistent glitch you could use to get out of bounds by banging your head against the cell corner and skip the familiar snatch-keys-from-a-guard sequence, but I had a hunch it would only lead to a massive headache if you tried to use it here.

Of course, in the case of Sorry Man, he wasn't trying to clip out of bounds from the corner, he was simply waiting for the walls to disappear – waiting for erosion, earthquakes and continental drifts to clear the obstacles on his way. Sorry Man was practically immortal and indestructible, so he had time to wait for such things.

Sorry Man was the seventh “playable” character – playable in quotes because player actions as Sorry Man were severely limited. You had to unlock this character by completing the game as a Rainwoman and then jump through series of puzzles to get him out of the Raft Mine. He was (probably) originally meant to be the nightmare difficulty mode of the game, but the mode wasn't properly implemented, so it was like playing the game with a straitjacket on.

Not very enjoyable in neurogame, and especially frustrating for speedrunners – it was basically a shakycam spectator mode.

Sorry Man speedruns were done mostly as a joke because they were so slow and RNG-heavy that they were officially labeled as Bad Day Sorry Man (BDSM) runs. Slouching was the only way to move around, enemies kept kicking you around like a ragdoll and every corner was a potential soft lock. You couldn't die, so if you got stuck out of bounds, the run was practically dead because you had to load an autosave point at the start of the level and watch the unskippable intro animation again.

Sorry Man was a main character as morbid as he looked. But then again, compared to the other screaming and drooling idiots in this wing, he looked like a noble dark prince.

Rainwoman hugged Sorry Man like a wife hugging a soldier coming back from war, or hardcore otaku hugging his favorite waifu pillow. I could hear her mumbling something to Sorry Man's ear, but I couldn't distinguish the words.

She continued to hug him so long I started to feel uncomfortable.

“Hey, Rain, we're on a bit of a tight schedule here. Can we save touchy-feely stuff for later, perhaps?”

Rain gave me a vicious look, probably evaluating if it was worth it to keep me alive. Please read the atmosphere, okay? I'm not going to slow you down, Rain, can't you see how fast my running shoes are?

“Look, he wants to get out of here fast too. Let's all go together now, shall we?”

Sorry Man didn't really care where he was, but at least my words had an effect.

Rain turned around, lead Sorry Man out of the cell by holding his hand, and then threw one of her revolvers to me.

“Reload.” (Rain)

“My pleasure, we're in the same team after all.”

She was probably testing me a bit with this, so I had to do this perfectly.

It was a great relief that Rain wasn't a drug addict yet. She was still a lot more stable than at the start of the anime; she wasn't shouting and destroying things. That saves us from so much trouble.

Most of the forced drama during the first season originated from her violent mood swings. Rainwoman was actually unpopular character at first because of that, but when her drug addiction was revealed at the end of the first season, fans slapped their collective foreheads and went back to re-watch the early episodes, tracking the frequency of her off-screen battle drug abuse: “Yeah, here she goes back to the garden because she needs a hit and then she returns in this scene, already holding a gun, acting completely paranoid.”

It was completely obvious in hindsight that she was a user, but the hints were just subtle enough that casual viewers didn't put one and one together.

“All aboard the escape train, the real show is about to start. Ready to go six floors up, Rain?”

I handed the loaded revolver back to Rain, grip first. She sneered at me like I was a heap of trash, but I held a polite smile.

Let's think of that familiar sneer as a reward for a job well done.

Tettere~te! Sorry Man has joined the party. Four out of seven MCs collected.

---

“We stopped them, we stopped them! ...No, we didn't stop them, they are still coming!”

“It's her! It's the Bad Weather Girl from seventh floor! No, no...”

“Control yourself, soldier! Stay in line, in Caliph's name, stay in line!”

The chattering station guards finally got a working defense line formed at the second floor, but it was far too late.

What they saw first was a man dressed in all black with empty eyes, and Rainwoman followed right behind him, shooting over his shoulders.

The few trusted guards on this level who had seen Sorry Man and Rainwoman before instantly knew they were in deep trouble.

The guards kept shooting Sorry Man, but Rain pushed him forward and kept him upright.

This was the contradictory nature of Rain's affection to Sorry Man – she wanted to protect him from harm, yet she knew he was immune to harm; she wanted to keep him safe, yet dragged him into dangerous situations with her; she hated how the kinetic energy of projectiles made his body twitch, yet used him as a shield without a second thought.

Sorry Man was Rainwoman's indestructible walking shield, but if you dared to even touch her shield without her permission, you died.

It was somewhat understandable when you knew that Rain was forced to watch some of the experiments they did to Sorry Man – needles and razors shattered in his eyes, acids and liquid metals poured into his mouth, crushing weights put on top of his head, and so on. None of those experiments actually harmed Sorry Man, but watching that stuff happen to her handsome prince made Rain mad.

Rainwoman was born with the skills and instincts of a battle-hardened veteran, yet she was still a teenage girl in love.

Sorry Man didn't move very quickly on his own, so Rain had to drag and push him everywhere, and since she didn't allow anyone else to touch him at this point, she had to take time to lead him. If you left Sorry Man alone for too long, he shuffled right into corners like a dumb NPC AI because he tried to take the most direct route to Starfish Mansion or Rukhkh Mountain, or whatever Strangers anomaly was closest.

“Do not come! Do not come! You can't go out, you can't!”

“It doesn't die! What is that thing made of?!”

“I surrender! I will let you through, don't kill me! Do you hear–”

Some of the guards tried to negotiate, but of course Rain didn't listen.

Kill them before they slow you down by starting a dialogue block. I approved that strat, but, well... aiming for 100% kills is a commendable goal as well, but listen, Rain, we don't have time for that...

“Rain, hey–”

Rain, please stop kicking and stomping on the grievously wounded guards who are trying to crawl away, damage over time will kill them soon anyway.

“Rain, sorry to disturb your rage spasm, but we should continue moving –”

Really, there's no need to stop just to punch the corpses either. How do I tell her to take it easy when these poor bastards dared to shoot her beautiful Sorry Man and blemish his perfect cheekbones with gunpowder?

Oh, right, she's a big fan of personal revenge in every way.

“Hey, Rain! Newsflash! The main researcher!”

“...Ha?!” (Rain)

“Would you like to kill the main researcher who tortured you in the machine chamber? I know a shortcut directly into his private room. He's probably hiding there behind locked doors waiting for all this uproar to disappear. The fat woman who washed you before the experiments should be there too. Don't ask how I know these things, I'll explain everything later.”

“...Take me there. I'll rip his face off.” (Rain)

Yosh, we're moving in the right direction again.

Only one dungeon floor to go and were back above ground. A short detour in the first floor to kill the main researcher and his lover, and we'll be fine.

Crys was predictably fascinated by Sorry Man's lack of reactions to direct gunfire. He was probably ready to do some experiments of his own when Rain wasn't around.

“Caliph Tze aims for immortality similar to this?” (Crys)

“Pretty much on the same level, yes.”

“We certainly can't allow that.” (Crys)

“We certainly can't, old chap, we certainly can't.”

Looting corpses is fine too, Rain and Kimono, but going fast is more important. We need to stock up on supplies after this mission anyway.

The difficulty level of herding stray cats gets higher every time you take in a new stray cat.

---

First explosion. Second explosion.

Ugh. Somebody turn down the volume, my ears are ringing from all the gunfire and explosions. I need to update my improvised hearing protection.

Dancer ignited the dynamite soon after we had moved outside the outer ring of guard patrols.

The dew domes blew up behind us and large holes formed in rapid succession when the underground caverns collapsed.

The cliff sides of the narrow road to Petrified Forest blew up like confetti guns shooting fossils and rubble.

Dancer took good care of his side of the mission. He really was the most useful non-main character.

They had lost their moisture collectors, they lost their water reservoir, and they had lost their water production method. All this and the massive property damage would make sure that Bone Dune Station has to stop research operations for good.

Mission completed.

“All right, let's move to the designated extraction point to regroup with Dancer. I think we should blow up some more dynamite on the way too.”

“Even more? Why?” (Kimono)

“They will probably send special investigators from Reingland to find out what happened here. We need to blow up our footsteps.” (Crys)

“Pim pom, that's the right answer. They have deviant trackers than can follow our scent and now that Rain is in the party, they can follow the clouds. Listen to your big bro, Kim-chan.”

“Caliph Tze won't delay his journey to north when he learns about this?” (Kimono)

“No, he's on a timer as well. He wants to arrange everything before Rukhkh bird arrives and to be absolutely sure he doesn't miss it. He pushes everything else on his to do list to post-Rukhkh world. And that's his biggest mistake, and our biggest window of opportunity. Rukhkh-bird is our ticking clock.”

Rainwoman listened our conversations in silent reverence while holding Sorry Man close to her side. This was the first time in years she had seen the outside world – the sunshowers her curse created, the dark clouds that followed her, the sand dunes, the haggard sun in the sky, the warm desert wind, the black smoke and flames rising from the Bone Dune Station.

She was quite taken by the massive explosions Dancer had set up.

“It's a beautiful sight to see it disappear in smoke, isn't it? Turns a key in your heart, right?”

“...What weapon is that?” (Rain)

“That's our main weapon called dynamite. We can deal the same amount of damage to Caliph Tze, if we work together. We'll naturally share some of it to you too and I'll teach you how to use it. How about it? Collaboration is a win-win proposition for both. We will help you to protect and keep Sorry Man hidden from Caliph too, obviously.”

My words and actions so far were hopefully convincing enough for Rain to continue adventuring with us.

“...I will go where Sorry Man goes.” (Rain)

“Oh, then it's decided, because Sorry Man is actually going the same way.”