Just before the door set back into the frame, Lance had rushed over and grabbed it from the other side, pulling back on it. He placed one foot on the wall near the hinges and pushed against it, giving him more leverage against the equally strong Mamba on the other side of the door.
Suddenly he found it much easier to pull and the hatch flew open. Lance released his grasp just in time to divert the aim of Mamba’s assault rifle from himself and into the ceiling as the Ouroboros captain squeezed off a spray of bullets. Mamba let go of the under-barrel grip on his weapon and threw a punch, hitting Lance in the chest. Lance brought his free hand up and chopped down on Mama’s right arm to try to force him to drop the gun, then kicked him back. Having succeeded, Lance broke the weapon over his knee and tossed the pieces at Mamba.
Angered, Mamba turned and started climbing the ladder as fast as he could. Lance was about to follow when a dark green egg-shaped object dropped by his feet. He realized what it was and threw the hatch closed just before the grenade exploded inside the hatch.
“That was close…” he sighed.
Adam had just finished lining up the gang members they had taken down along the wall of the tunnel.
“Are you okay?” asked Adam.
“Yeah, the blast wasn't strong enough to go through the door,” replied Lance. “That's the integrity of metasteel for you.”
“Well, we have four guys here,” stated Adam. “One of them might be able to tell us something.”
“True, but you heard that Mamba guy,” said Lance. “They are stealing something from GenTek… Why don't we tag one of these guys in case they get out and come back for them later. We just need to find something to tie them up with.”
They searched the packs the Ouroboros were carrying and found some rope and restrained each of them.
“Let me guess, you have some means of hacking one of their phones to track it?” assumed Adam.
“Of course,” said Lance. “All phones have GPS, it's just a matter of reversing it on them.”
He searched the man in the middle and found his phone. He pulled out a small cord from his gauntlet and plugged it into the phone.
“L.A.S.S.I., run the tracking program,” he commanded.
“What can’t L.A.S.S.I. do?” laughed Adam.
“Tell a decent joke,” said Lance with a chuckle.
After a few minutes, the phone lit up, then went dark again. Lance unplugged the phone and returned it just before its owner began coming to.
“Wha---? What's going on?!” he shouted.
He looked up to see the black suited figures of Adam and Lance, their featureless helmets seeming to stare at him. He looked down at his bonds, then back at them.
“Let me go!” he demanded. “Do you have any idea who you're dealing with?”
“Are you Fleck?” asked Adam.
“Why does it matter?” asked Fleck.
“We need to get going,” stated Lance. “The others have quite the head start on us and are probably rushing since they know we are here.”
“You're right,” said Adam as he crouched to Fleck’s level.
“Now don't go anywhere!” he said with feign cheer. “We will be coming right back for you.”
“You can't…” began Fleck but wasn't allowed to finish as Adam grabbed and head-butted him, knocking him out again.
The team turned back to follow the remaining Ouroboros. They pulled the hatch open again, it somehow was still intact, though the inside was charred from the grenade blast. The ladder, however, was another story: what remained of the first several feet of it was shattered and blackened.
“This looks like it goes back to the surface level,” guessed Adam as he gazed up to a faint light above them.
He spotted a line of pipes above the doorway which snaked themselves along the walls and near the ladder.
“I’ll give you a boost up,” said Lance. “You can use those pipes to climb higher and then jump across to the ladder.”
Adam nodded, then backed up to the charred wall. Lance crouched down and put his hands together to make a stepping point.
“Ready?” asked Lance.
“Ready,” said Adam.
He pushed off the wall, taking the few steps between him and Lance, then up onto Lance’s joined hands. Lance burst up from his crouch, bringing his hands up at the same time, and launched Adam up the extra few feet he needed to reach the pipes. Adam grabbed hold of the lowest pipe and steadied himself along the wall.
“Now how are you going to get up?” asked Adam.
“Just climb across,” said Lance. “I’ll be behind you.”
Adam shimmied along the pipes and reached from the corner to the ladder and started climbing up. He glanced back down to see Lance run at the corner near the door, then kicked off the wall up to the edge of the doorway. Seemingly impossibly having enough of a reach, he grabbed the pipes and then followed the same path Adam had.
"You seriously need to teach me your tricks, dude..." Adam said.
"Some of them. Later."
They climbed the access way and quickly reached the top. They found the hatch at the top hastily closed, but not latched.
“Someone was in a bit of a hurry,” said Adam. “Lucky for us.”
The two emerged from the hatch and found themselves in a darkened maintenance room.
“Any idea as to where we are?” asked Lance.
“I'm not sure,” answered Adam. “We may actually be either in or near the GenTek main facility.”
They crept through the darkness, walking between large water pipes and low humming machinery. They passed by a large power assembly and spotted the GenTek logo stamped on the top face of it, confirming Adam’s presumption.
“It's a surprise they haven't tripped any of the alarms,” whispered Lance as they reached the door.
They glanced out of the doorway into the darkened hall, dimly lit by green and blue lights along the upper trim of the walls. Adam spotted an escape route directory on the wall next to them and studied the diagram of the various floors.
“Whatever they are looking for is probably in or near the main laboratories on the next floor up,” he suggested. “Hey L.A.S.S.I., can you copy this map to our HUD?”
“Of course, Adam,” replied the A.I.
Adam’s view automatically shifted to the advanced mode and highlighted the diagram he was looking at. The lines blinked several times, and then the diagram spun around to the corner of his view into a simple three-dimensional representation of the building. A small set of dots blinked in the lower portion which Adam guessed was where they were at the time.
“It’s just like in the video games!” said Adam gleefully.
“Only the bullets are real and you don't respawn,” said Lance. “But good thinking on grabbing that map. Now let's find out what they're after.”
Adam took point, taking care to move quietly down the hall to a set of stairs. Lance activated his thermal scanner to watch ahead for any bad guys. There was a faint residual trail from where the group had gone ahead of them, but nothing more.
Adam was about to turn a corner when Lance caught a flicker of high heat being emitted from the corner. He quickly reached out and grabbed Adam’s arm.
“Wait! I’m detecting a heat signature near the bottom of that corner. It looks like it could be a laser.”
Adam froze and looked down at where his feet were just inches from touching. With his infrared, he could detect a faint gray line pulsating from one corner of the entryway to the other.
“Whew, that was a close one!” whistled Adam. “But I can barely see it with my visor. Do you see anything ahead?”
Lance situated himself in the center of the entranceway to get a clear view of what lay ahead. He could make out the laser and what looked like a mobile weapon at the end of the hallway glowing with extreme heat.
“Um, we might have a problem on our hands,” he stated.
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