There had to be around two hundred people in the base, maybe a few more or less. It was time for the evening meal for most of them; apparently the evil government conspiracy kept more or less office hours. On the very bottom level, it was also time for dinner. That was where the cells were located, so that was where the prisoners were being fed while the staff ate in a large canteen up on the top level, which was still a considerable distance belowground. The majority of the staff seemed to live on site and there was ample space for them up on level one.
Below that were labs, offices and operation rooms, though to Andrea it appeared as though the labs were retrofits. These had been offices and had now been given over to various forms of research, all of it Ultrahuman science. And below the labs, there were other, less savoury forms of working environments. It seemed like Kopf had finally cracked a way of creating super-soldiers since there were people training in several rooms who clearly had enhanced strength and reflexes. The enhanced strength showed partially in ugly muscle mass which distorted their normal proportions, but they were fairly fast for all that bulk. As Andrea watched, she began to discern a few other characteristics: none of them were very bright, they seemed to largely ignore pain in any form, and they appeared to have short tempers. The instructors were not exactly afraid of them, but they were more careful around them than one might generally expect from a drill sergeant.
There were also other rooms, some of which Andrea had no clue as to the function of. Four she did, and in one of those she found Fleet. She had checked two of the sensory deprivation tanks before she found the girl. Clearly, someone was attempting to brainwash Fleet, but they also appeared to be doing something similar to a couple of men who looked like they were marines or maybe Army grunts. The super-thugs in the training room had looked like the same sort of men, so maybe this was part of Kopf’s process. Ultrahuman powers were a product of the mind, so perhaps the subjects needed to have the right sort of mindset to form the right kinds of powers. Andrea was not sure what Kopf – she was sure it would be Kopf – was doing to Fleet, but the girl lay there in the dark, unmoving. It did not look good.
‘We need to get her out,’ Twilight said.
‘We will,’ Andrea answered.
‘If we grab her, they’ll know they’ve been found,’ Midnight pointed out.
‘I know. We’ll get her out, but it’ll have to wait until everything else is ready. An hour or two is not going to make that much difference.’
‘You don’t know that,’ Twilight stated flatly.
‘No, I don’t, but it’ll still have to wait. We’re going to need a plan to hit this place, and I need to know every square inch of it to come up with one.’
Turning from the black tank with its precious contents, Andrea went on, searching through the bunker and memorising everything she saw.
New Millennium City, MD.
‘I couldn’t find Kopf,’ Andrea said as she rubbed at the bridge of her nose. Jacob put a mug of coffee in front of her and she flashed him a smile. ‘However, I did find a couple of areas that I couldn’t see into.’
‘Like the place he had in San Francisco?’ Cygnus asked.
‘Just like that. I figure he has his quarters and some work areas warded. I’d rather not get Viviane involved in this, so someone else is going to have to track him down in there.’
‘We’re probably lucky he hasn’t done the whole site.’
‘Maybe. The guards I saw had some fairly serious firepower. Most were packing P-nineties. That’s nothing you haven’t totally ignored before, Cygnus, but everyone else should be careful. They put out a lot of bullets in a short time, and the ammo was designed to punch through Kevlar. I’m pretty sure they had handguns as backup. I saw a few grenades, but I suspect they’re smokers. Letting off something explosive in a confined space wouldn’t be a great idea.’
‘But don’t rely on it,’ Jacob said. ‘I’m not saying it’s a sure thing, but some of them may be fanatical enough to consider going down with the enemy a good trade.’
‘I’m not really fond of explosions,’ Miss Liberty said, grimacing a little. Cygnus had called Chantelle and asked whether Miss Liberty wanted in on the operation. She had been… keen on joining. Svetilo was also there, and had brought Zoe to the house so that she could sit in with Denny, even if neither was going to know what had actually happened until everyone got back.
‘I doubt it’ll be something you need to worry about. A typical hand grenade is not going to scratch you.’
Miss Liberty shrugged. ‘Maybe not. Um, I have to ask this. Are we trying to take these people alive for trial?’
‘We’re trying,’ Andrea replied. ‘I suspect that they might consider that a less appealing option. Just from what I saw, pretty much everyone in that base could be tried and convicted for conspiracy to commit just about every form of civil rights abuse in the legal code. That’s neglecting the kidnapping and, probably, a few cases of at least manslaughter if not murder. I found some of Kopf’s failed super-soldier experiments in freezers. He must be keeping them for testing.’
‘What about Josie?’ Brian asked. His voice was kind of soft, but it carried.
‘She’s there. She’s in a sensory deprivation tank. Physically, she looked fine, but I’ve no idea how long she’d been in there or what condition her mind’s in. Sorry, Zap, but if I’d pulled her out, they’d have known we were coming. She had to stay where she is until we go in and get her.’
Brian just nodded. ‘I’m going too,’ he stated flatly.
‘I’m not sure that’s such a great idea,’ Cygnus said.
‘It’s going to be Hell in there, kid,’ Jacob said, almost over the top of Cygnus.
‘I know you are,’ Andrea said, and Cygnus, Jacob, June, and Miss Liberty looked at her as though she’d gone nuts. ‘This is his girlfriend. He’s been going to the UoU training sessions. He knows what he can and can’t do.’ Andrea looked directly at the determined teenager. ‘You stick with Svetilo and Astraea. When the big guns have cleared the way in, the three of you will go and get Fleet. You can “arrest” anyone who gets in your way, but your main task will be to retrieve Fleet and get her up to the surface. Once that’s done, you’ll hold the exit and act as backup if needed. Jacob, I want you to hold the exit until they get to you. We need that route out if things go badly.’
‘Keeping me safe and out of the way?’
‘I expect you’ll be pretty busy freezing escaping staff to the floor, actually. You be careful. If anyone has to pick bullets out of you, I’ll be miffed.’
Jacob did know his own limitations. He nodded. ‘Fair enough.’
‘So, that leaves me, you, and Cygnus as those “big guns” you mentioned?’ Miss Liberty asked.
‘Basically. Well, to be precise, you and Cygnus are the artillery, and I’m going to reduce grown men to quivering blobs of terrified boy-jelly. The lighting in that place is perfectly adequate, but nowhere near bright enough to stop me.’
‘I think I’m going to come away from this profoundly disillusioned with the concept of war.’
‘Good. If everyone felt that way, we’d probably stop having wars.’
Iron Cap Black Site, WA.
Guard duty on the entrance elevator level was generally pretty boring. Not infrequently, an agent would find himself given the duty when he had somehow managed to piss off his boss, but it was a rotating duty for the lower-ranking agents: everyone did it eventually. It was rather mundane for agents who had all made Senior Special Agent, but when you considered what went on below, mundane could actually be pretty nice.
The two agents on duty tonight had started a four-hour shift at eight p.m. and were ‘looking forward to’ another two and a half hours of standing outside an elevator while nothing happened. It did beat guard duty down in the cells. There was even a coffee machine in the small office off the lobby area. That was vital if you pulled one of the after-midnight slots. They were, in fact, just talking about who should go and make the nex
t pot when the entire room was plunged into darkness.
You got used to darkness in the bunker. When you went to sleep, it was in total darkness, because you were basically sleeping in a cave. Turn out the lights and it went as black as the inside of Director Theakstone. This darkness was different. Somehow, it was darker than the simple absence of any light. It swallowed light. Or something in it did, something that was moving, getting closer, reaching out for whoever was foolish enough to be standing there in the dark…
As quickly as the blackness had arrived, it swept away again to reveal Andrea, in her working outfit, cuffing the two stunned, disarmed, and shivering agents. The rest of the team were coming down the stairs from ground level as she did so.
‘We probably don’t have too long before someone notices they have a problem,’ Andrea said. ‘There are cameras on this level. It just depends who’s watching.’
Nodding absently, Cygnus walked over to the elevator doors, wrenched them open enough to get her fingers inside, and then peeled the metal back as though it was cardboard. The car was nowhere in sight, but the cables were there. Shifting her powers, she stepped back, lifted an arm, and blasted the metal hawsers until they gave way. One of the cables slammed into the edge of the shaft as it whipped downward, and then there was an almighty crash as the elevator car slammed into the bottom. ‘They’re going to know we’re here soon enough anyway,’ she said as the noise died down.
‘True,’ Andrea replied. She pointed at a door off to one side. ‘That’s the fire stairs exit. They’ll be expecting us to use it.’
Jacob walked over to the door. He was in his full armour and his boot crashing into the door produced the expected result. In fact, the door flew off its hinges and started clattering down into the stairwell. ‘Door’s open,’ he said.
‘No kidding,’ Cygnus commented, then she turned and blasted the two cameras mounted in the ceiling. ‘Do you really think they’ll just be watching the stairs? They do know some of us can fly.’
‘I don’t think they’ll have identified everyone,’ Andrea replied. ‘They’ll probably know that Frostburn can’t fly. I doubt they even know who Zap is. I mean, this is the first time he’s been in costume outside of a UoU training session.’
As ordered, Zapf Bang! was sticking close to Svetilo and Astraea, but he looked tense and ready for a fight. His costume reflected his old hoodie-and-jeans outfit. It was, in fact, more or less a hoodie and jeans, but this one was made from high-tech fabrics and had trauma plates built into the jacket which could stop a rifle round. The whole thing was in black with white lightning streaks decorating the arms and the sides of the slacks. The lightning streaks reacted to his powers by glowing, and they were glowing right now, even though he was not actually doing anything consciously. His secret identity was maintained via a mask which covered his mouth and nose, and that had filters in it to keep gas out of his lungs. ‘I’m ready,’ he said, his fists clenching.
‘I know you are, Zap,’ Andrea replied. ‘Stick to the plan as much as possible.’ Then she walked over to the elevator shaft and stepped off into space.
‘Here we go,’ Cygnus said. She followed Andrea down the shaft with Miss Liberty on her heels.
‘We give them a few minutes to take care of immediate opposition,’ Svetilo said, ‘and then we go find your girlfriend, Zap.’
‘I know,’ he said.
‘This is brave thing you do for the woman you love. Invading secret base against the odds.’
‘Uh, thanks.’
The Russian kept her face entirely straight as she added, ‘The sex must be incredible.’
Beneath his mask, Brian felt his cheeks heating up, but he had sort of expected something like that from the notorious heroine-cum-model. ‘Well, I think it is, but I don’t have your experience.’
Svetilo let out a bellow of a laugh. ‘Touché, Zap. Stick with us, and we will get you your love back. You have my word as Russian.’
~~~
‘She is going to leave us some, isn’t she?’ Miss Liberty asked as Cygnus pushed through the elevator doors at the bottom of the shaft. Just below them, the elevator car was a crumpled mess.
Cygnus stepped out into the room beyond the doors and looked around to see Andrea’s shadows filling the space around the fire exit. ‘She can be a little greedy. It’s best to jump in when you spot a spare.’
‘I heard that,’ Andrea called from the roiling darkness. Someone began panic firing and bullets zinged out of the black to slam into walls and ceiling. The firing was suddenly cut off as Andrea got to the shooter.
‘Well, it’s true,’ Cygnus called back. ‘The one behind you is reaching for a grenade.’
‘On it.’
‘I can’t see a thing in there,’ Miss Liberty said. ‘I can usually see something, even in complete darkness.’
‘Twilight’s darkness cuts off more or less the whole visible and near-visible spectrum,’ Cygnus said. ‘I think I see by some sort of cosmic energy thing.’
The shadows fell away into a low carpet which clung to the floor revealing nine unconscious men, and one who would probably not be waking up if the slash across his chest was anything to go by. ‘We needed these ones out of the way quickly,’ Andrea said. ‘I promise you’ll get to hit some when we get deeper into the base.’
‘You, um, had to kill that one?’ Miss Liberty asked, indicating the man with the slashed torso.
‘He was the one who started shooting. Two of his friends might not be waking up because of him. I needed to stop him quickly. Extra quickly.’
‘I guess.’
Andrea nodded. ‘Just be careful how much force you use yourself. If you don’t remember to pull your punches, you’re more likely to kill someone than I am.’
Miss Liberty returned the nod. ‘I guess there aren’t too many innocent people down here anyway.’
‘Probably very few. Let’s get moving before we have the entire base on top of us.’
~~~
Theakstone thought, at first, that his phone was ringing again, but the sound seemed wrong. By the time he had processed what the difference was, his phone was ringing.
‘Theakstone,’ he barked. ‘What’s the alert for?’
‘We’re under attack, sir,’ the voice on the other end said. ‘We’ve definitely identified Cygnus, Twilight, and Miss Liberty.’
‘Miss Liberty?! She should be on our side.’ Even as he said it, Theakstone was aware that he was probably lying to himself.
‘Apparently not, sir. We believe we’ve identified Astraea, Cygnus’s sidekick, and Svetilo, possibly Frostburn, and there’s at least one other target we don’t have an identity for. We’re having trouble containing them. They seem to know the base rather well and our weapons aren’t really a match for them.’
‘I’ll be there in five minutes. Deploy the super-soldiers. I want those people stopped and I don’t care about capture.’
~~~
Svetilo stopped on the fire stairs and edged open one of the doors. ‘Da, this is first level down. Can tell from the bodies.’
‘Bodies?’ Zap asked. It came out as more of a squeak than he would have liked.
‘Mostly unconscious, I think. We go down two more to get to the level Fleet is on.’
‘And we take it carefully when we get there,’ Astraea said. ‘The three big guns will be keeping most of the agents busy up on level one, but they won’t have cleared everyone out of the lower levels. That costume will take most of the sting out of gunshot, but it wasn’t designed with armour-piercing rounds in mind, Zap, so if they’re carrying rifles, stay behind me and Svetilo.’
‘I don’t know about you,’ Svetilo said, ‘but my force field doesn’t do too well against armour-piercing rounds either.’
‘Oh. Well, thinking about it, I’ve never tested… You know what? Let’s all just try not to get shot at at all.’
‘Da! This is sound plan, Astraea. I am not sure it will work entirely, but the plan is sound.’ The Russian w
as grinning broadly.
‘Oh, shut up,’ Astraea suggested. ‘Let’s get down to level three and rescue Fleet.’
~~~
‘They’re withdrawing,’ Cygnus commented. It seemed to be true. The agents who had been trying to hold the main corridor through the top level were pulling back in twos. ‘Why do I think that’s not a good thing?’
‘Because they must have a reason,’ Andrea replied from within her shadows. ‘I think they’re pulling back to the canteen. Maybe they have a defence lined up there. Heavier weapons? Let me scout ahead.’ The blackness surged forward, chasing the last of the retreating agents toward a pair of double doors and then vanishing inside. There was a pause and then Andrea’s voice over the radio link. ‘They’ve got the super-soldiers lined up here. A couple of them have some sort of energy weapon which they are firing at me and– Hey! I actually felt that!’
Cygnus and Miss Liberty bolted forward, slamming through the doors. Tables had been set up as a makeshift barrier at the far side of the room, which was the largest they had yet seen in the complex. Behind the tables were a number of agents with the short, high-tech P90 rifles in their hands. In front of the tables were ten hulking brutes jammed into combat fatigues. A couple had P90s, a couple more were carrying bulkier rifles of a weird design with a very broad muzzle, and the rest were unarmed. The ones with the weird rifles were busy changing big, magazine-like power cells. Andrea’s shadows were still there, looking just as solid as usual.
‘I said I felt it,’ Andrea said, ‘not that it hurt. Be careful. I’m not sure what those things are firing, but it’s powerful.’ Then she moved forward, her shadows spreading as she went.
A beam of light lanced out through the blackness as Andrea closed on the soldiers and agents. It was pure luck that it hit Cygnus in the left arm. She let out a shriek of surprise as the beam burned into her skin. It hurt. It had gone through her force screen as though there was nothing there, but the cry was definitely more shock than pain; the weapon had left a reddened mark on her bicep. ‘I know what that is. Kopf has come up with a cosmic energy rifle.’
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