Adam leaned against the edge of the rooftop platform, watching for Lance to arrive, his dark jumpsuit seeming to block the few rays of light coming from the setting sun.
A light tap on his shoulder got his attention causing him to whirl around in a ready stance. A person wearing a similar suit with a matching mask stood before him.
Adam swore under his breath for not having a mask himself as the figure threw a punch at him. Adam blocked the attack and countered with one of his own. There was a similar exchange of attacking and countering, back and forth, until the assailant swept Adam's legs from under him and pinned him down.
There was a tense moment of both of them catching their breaths, then the person spoke.
“You fought well, but there is still room for improvement,” he said as he released Adam and lifted him to his feet.
“Never mind the fact that it felt like you were holding back.”
“Well after the first few punches I knew it was you, so I guess my brain kept me from pushing harder,” Adam noted, unsure of his friend’s tone.
Lance pulled off his mask with a stern look on his face.
“You'll need to sort that one out,” he instructed.
“If I were one of the Ouroboros you might not have gotten back up from the ground.”
Lance walked to a utility shed on the rooftop and typed a sequence on his watch face. The wall opened up, revealing several cases of their gear.
“Suit up, we've got a lot of ground and not a lot of time.”
------
The duo traversed the city with ease, using their grappling lines and the dense city blocks to stay well above the eyes of anyone on the street. Their destination being GenTek, they opted first to try the service tunnel through which they had followed the Ouroboros when the criminals had attempted to steal the company’s “Skeleton Key” tech. It had been a few months since the incident, so they presumed the city’s infrastructure crew had already come in and repaired the damages from the said escapade.
They arrived at the familiar tunnel entrance under the bridge between Sector Five and Sector One and noticed the hatch that now covered the underground passage.
“They had to make it easy for us, didn’t they?” joked Adam.
“We just have to know how to knock enough times,” said Lance dryly.
He examined the lock on the door, noting it had a simple keycard reader next to it that flared with a bright red light. He pulled out the smartphone that he used to connect to his home server for their missions and placed it against the device.
"L.A.S.S.I., unlock this keycard reader."
The smartphone flashed with a series of codes and the lock cycled from red to green, showing it was unlocked.
“Open says me…” mumbled Lance as he opened the door.
Adam reached out and grabbed his friend’s shoulder.
“Dude, are you alright?” he asked.
“I’m fine, why?” Lance replied shortly.
Adam shook his head.
“No, that isn’t a good enough answer… what’s up?”
Lance clenched his fists for a moment, then relaxed his posture with a long exhale.
“Let’s just say that even being aware of the risks doesn’t keep them from burdening you,” he finally said. “If more innocent people get hurt by the groups we are dealing with… if people we care about are caught in the crossfire because of what we have ventured into doing…”
“Lance, I’ve got your back on this. You don’t have to carry all of the weight alone… no matter how strong of a guy you are, you can still have other people help you.”
Lance turned to Adam and patted his shoulder.
“I know, and I’m glad you’re here. I apologize for earlier..”
“Let’s get in and find what we came here for, maybe stop by their cafeteria for a snack on the way out!” joked Adam.
The path ahead was familiar, yet different at the same time: the tunnels had been repaired and reinforced, but the way to access Gen Tek had been all but sealed off. All that remained was a single, solid door with a security panel similar to the one they had just bypassed.
They also noticed a series of cameras panning the area in front of said doorway and pulled back just in time before they would have been potentially recorded.
“Not entirely a surprise that they’ve upped their security,” noted Lance. “Though I kind of wish they hadn’t…”
“Can’t you just hack them like you do everything else?” asked Adam with a shrug.
Lance paused.
“Yes… I just wanted to have a smoother transaction and not have to do as much tonight… we have a lot of ground to cover and time is of the essence…”
He looked around at the improvements to the service tunnel and scanned the pipelines and conduits that snaked above their heads.
“If only there were a conveniently positioned line for steam or something,” he said with a sigh.
“Guess we have to do it the hard way…”
He reached for his utility belt and grabbed a small metal bar that had a wheel at the end of it. With the flick of his wrist, it unfolded into a three-pointed shuriken, which he threw at the base of the first camera. It severed the connection that fed into the wall and the camera went dead. He repeated the process for the other camera and then moved forwards.
“This is the second to least stealthy option…” he stated. “Which means we may or may not have to deal with a night guard that would have been watching the cameras.”
“Then let’s make quick work of this, shall we?” Adam suggested.
Lance used his smartphone to unlock the door and carefully opened it. He checked that they were clear and waved Adam up, then pointed up the shaft they had to scale before.
“Check infrared, they might have installed sensors around here too,” he said.
Adam keyed the controls for his visor and looked all around them.
“Oh yeah… don’t move…” he said as he froze. “There is a tripline right in front of us…”
Lance nodded.
“Any others?” he asked. “You can use your advanced detection mode to tag the emitters and share them with my visor screen. I think I can make out a few, but you’ll have a better time doing so.”
Adam did so and found the grid of lasers to be rather daunting.
Lance examined the layout that was sent to his visor.
“At least they’re stationary…” he said. “L.A.S.S.I., plot a route up the service shaft that avoids the lasers, please.”
A series of blue motes appeared on their displays, rising through the gaps in the laser grid like a bouncing ball with reversed gravity.
“Limber up, this one’s going to involve some tricky maneuvers…”
With a great deal of effort and a lot of lucky maneuvers, they managed to scale the service shaft without setting off any alarms. They took a brief moment to catch their breath, then proceeded into the facility. They quickly noticed that they were not alone and found places to hide in the shadows just as a security guard walked by on patrol.
“Where were these guys when the Ouroboros broke in last time?” whispered Adam.
“Do you really want to think about that?” asked Lance, implying an obvious answer.
“Good point… Where do we need to go now?”
“Server room…” Lance replied as he consulted the map they acquired during their last visit. “Third floor, almost directly above us.”
They watched for a moment to see where the guard’s route took him. He walked around the lobby area, then turned down a hall leading toward the rear of the building. Lance made a ‘move up’ gesture to Adam, then followed behind as they crept towards the nearby dual set of stairs to the next floor. They each took separate stairwells, the two twisting structures together in a spiral that was to resemble a DNA strand. They reached the second floor and proceeded down the hall to the next set of stairs, narrowly avoiding a beam of light that suddenly flickered behind them.
“Another guard…” Adam said quietly over their comm. “I’d almost bet there will be one on each floor…”
“The Skeleton Key is a pretty hot item… I’m honestly surprised they aren’t employing heavier security…”
As he said this, Adam came to an abrupt halt in front of him.
“They did… There’s another guard ahead… with some pretty heavy gear…”
He looked around the intersection of the hallway they had hidden around, then pointed at a sign on the wall.
“Could we technically find what we need anywhere in their system?” he asked. “It looks like there are some offices down that way.”
“It’s possible, it would just require more time to break in… Let’s try.”
A few minutes later they had bypassed the locks to a supervisor’s office and Lance had begun the process of hacking into the computer.
Adam stood near the door, peaking through the edges of the curtains around the glass to keep an eye out.
“I know it’s probably not a great time to simply chat, but what do you think of the trip coming up to Mythos Labs?” Adam asked.
Lance paused from typing and glanced up at him.
“As in, to their facility that is on the far end of Sector One?” asked Lance. “I didn’t realize that was happening.”
He resumed typing.
“That’s interesting…”
Adam turned back to Lance.
“What is?”
Lance typed for another moment, then unplugged his device from the computer.
“Several things are… but right now the biggest one is that there is nothing to learn from GenTek,” he answered as he stood from the desk.
“I copied some of the more recent project files to have it decoded more thoroughly later, but there are no matches for what we are looking for.”
“Alright, then let’s get out of here… I’ve got an essay to write before 2 a.m. rears its ugly head…”
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