Ray walked into the fabrication room, finding Mick and Nate already dressed in white medical scrubs, save for Sara who was in a sharp white and gray jumpsuit. Sara had benched Martin from the mission because of his recent headaches, then subsequently sat out Jax too. Jax had grumpily said he'd needed to repair the ship from damages sustained during their escape from the Time Bureau anyway. "Is this what they wear in labs in 2032?" Ray asked. This was certainly way more uniform than he required in his labs, when he worked there.
"We don't know what kind of work he's doing in the lab." Nate tossed a set of scrubs and a lab coat at Ray, who barely and clumsily caught them, "This was the best estimate Gideon could give us, Doctor."
Mick shoved the rest of his pastry in his mouth and messily wiped his mouth. "What's the plan, Cap?"
Sara was pulling up her hair into a neat bun at the top of her head. "Gideon said he went missing from his office, so we sneak into his building and get him as close as we can to there. We stay under the radar," she glared at Rory, "No shooting unless we're found out."
"Do we know where his office is?" Ray asked as he pulled off his shirt and shrugged on the scrubs and lab coat.
Sara shook her head. "Gideon couldn't find a map of this place in any records; something about his research being 'top secret'. So we'lll have to find it when we're inside." She took a deep breath and straightened her scrubs before addressing the team, "Okay, boys. Lets head out and return this mystery doctor."
"This must be it." Nate said after he read the name on the door--the Doctor's name--and stopped the team.
Ray stepped to the door and shook the handle, but it didn't budge. "It's locked." He explained, backing up so that Rory could bust the door down. Mick shrugged the unconscious Doctor off his shoulder and onto Ray who caught him only in time to gently lean him against the opposite wall.
Before Mick could kick down the door, they heard footsteps and voices from around the corner. Sara scanned the hallway and knew breaking into the office would attract attention they didn't want. She heard a soft beep from the Doctor and turned to discover that when Ray leaned him against the wall, the Doctor's ID badge from his shirt pocket unlocked the door across from his office. "In here." Sara instructed as she opened the door.
The Legends filed in, dragging the Doctor behind them, and Nate quietly shut the door behind them. They stood still for several beats, hands hovering over their weapons and waiting for any sounds to indicate they'd been discovered. When they heard the voices pass their door without incident, they sighed in relief and turned on the lights of the room they were in. It was a lab, as they discovered, and a big one at that.
"We gotta wake him up." Sara moved further into the room, "We can't flash him until he's awake. And then we'll get out of here."
"There should be some kind of adrenalin around here or something." Ray suggested, helping Mick drag the Doctor onto a gurney.
They spread out. Mick and Ray claimed the two corners close to the door, where there were plenty of counters and drawers and shelves to rummage carelessly through. Nate and Sara went further into the room, where it was more bare. Nate's quadrant looked to be some sort of testing chamber, with a walled-off room and a big single-sided mirror. He silver'd up and barged in to continue their search.
Sara's quadrant was mostly empty, leaving only a couple shelves and a couple doors for her to clear. Quickly searching through the shelves and deeming them unhelpful and unimportant, the Captain moved to the first door--the one closest to the entrance. She easily opened the door, a little harder than she intended, expecting some resistance. The door revealed a shallow closet with strange medical equipment she'd never seen before and didn't care to know. She sighed as she closed the door--careful to be softer than when she opened it--and moved to the second door on the wall. On the other side of the metal door, Sara frowned. This closet was deeper and was filled with more domestic things. There were sheets and other cloths, enough rations to feed the Legends for months, and--strange enough--some kind of board games with foreign writing. Against one if the walls, there were several screens beeping and displaying charts and graphs and code. As Sara squinted indiscriminately at the information, she nosily wished she knew more about code than she had learned with the League.
The Captain shrugged indifferently and exited the room. She had one more door to clear, sure that's where they'd find the adrenalin Ray had recommended, and was itching to get out of this place. It gave her a bad feeling.
Although the other doors had been unlocked, the final one had a manual lock. Sara smiled as she unflipped the hatch--of course they'd lock up the good stuff. As she opened the door and peered in, her smile fell. Behind the door was a long hallway, at least a couple hundred feet, leading to a heavy metal door.
As Sara stepped to investigate, she heard Ray call her name from behind her, "Sara!" She turned to see the boys looking at her, "We found it!"
"Good. Inject him with it and flash him as soon as he wakes up." The Captain ordered.
Nate nodded then moved to try to see past her into the hallway. "What's in there?" He asked.
"Not sure yet." She shut the door a little bit behind her, feeling strangely protective over it. "I'm going to check it out. I'll be right back." She said, justifying it to herself as checking out a possible threat. She wouldn't let the mission fall apart just because she didn't clear one more door.
Sara stepped into the hallway, hoping the boys wouldn't screw up anything too badly while she was gone and she heard the door click shut behind her. The hallway was starkly white and she could hear he heels of her boots echo as she walked. The door at the end was... Strange. It was huge and reinforced, in a medical steel and had a hatch that Sara would've had to stand on her toes slightly to see through.
As she closed the couple remaining feet, the Captain saw the door was locked only with a single deadbolt, which she thought was a strange juxtaposition next to the weight of the door. Sara's hand hovered over her staff, ready to grab it and defend herself in the case that whatever was behind the door wasn't friendly. Her free hand hesitated for only a second as she reached for the dead bolt, she was far too curious now to turn back. Sara unlocked the door and opened it slowly.
The first thing she saw was movement and Sara instinctually grabbed her staff and extended it. As light flooded into the room, Sara saw it was mostly bare. She briefly catalogued the bare bed in the center before looking to what had moved, which was now in the corner.
It was a girl. The Captain couldn't tell how old she was as the girl's long dark hair fell over her face and her knees that were curled up to her chest, but she could tell the girl was scared.
"No, please. No more." The girl cried, lifting her hands in surrender as she tried to sink into the wall.
Sara immediately dropped her staff, mesmerized by the girl's bright blue eyes that were accentuated by her red eyes from crying. "Woah, woah, woah." Sara lowered herself to the girl's level and kept a calm and steady tone. "I'm not gonna hurt you."
"You're one of them." The girl sniffled, tucking in her legs and arms tightly.
Sara couldn't figure out what the girl was going on about, until she followed the girl's eyes down to the nurse's uniform she was wearing. "Oh no no no," She smiled, trying to ease the situation, and took off the nurse's hat, "I'm going to help you." Sara gave a soft smile when the girl looked up and seemed to be listening. "My name is Sara. What's your's?" The girl wiped her eyes and Sara took note of the angry red marks around the girl's wrists, though she saw no other signs of injury so far.
"I'm Juliette." Her voice cracked.
"Nice to meet ya, kid." Sara debated initiating contact with the girl, but decided that could wait. "How about we get you out of here?"
"Out?" The girl echoed. She knew she shouldn't be so foolish. There'd been tests before; this could be one of them. But, somehow, the woman just seemed so real.
Sara stood and offered a hand down to the girl, sure that she wouldn't take it and Sara would have to drag the girl from here by force. She really didn't want to do that, as Sara was sure the girl had seen enough force for a child her age. However; Juliette took the Captain by surprise--something Sara imagined she'd have to get used to with this one--as the girl's shakey hand reached out and placed her's in the bigger one.
They both froze for just a moment at the unexpected contact. Juliette felt the strength and warmth from the Captain's hand. She felt more safe in that moment than she had in as long as she could remember. Sara noticed the multiple needle marks on the girl's arms and how they were in various stages of healing. The mosst recent one was just beginning to scab over and could've been done in the past few hours.
Tucking away the few bits of information she had on the kid, Sara pulled her to her feet and stabilized her until she felt somewhat-sturdy. The Captain was about to guide the girl in a few shakey steps so that they could gage her mobility when loud alarms and a blinking red light went off.
"Sara?" Ray poked his head into the door on the other side of the hallway. "We've got a situation. We flashed the Doctor and he woke up all confused and pressed the panic button and... Who's that?" He rambled before barely spotting the shadow that Sara was only then helping into the light of the hallway florecents.
"Her name's Juliette. Get her out of here and back to the Ship. I'll help delay whatever's coming." Sara ordered, grateful that it was Ray that came in. Ray had to be the best with kids out of all of them, Sara guessed.
Ray immediately suited up and sprinted towards them. "I'm going to carry you, is that alright?" He asked, lookin into the girl's face for a closer look than from across they hall. He immediately noticed how her bright blue eyes contrasted with her tanned skin and the cute dusting of freckles over her nose, which made him initially underestimate her age when he realized she was really probably 13 or 14. He saw the hesitation in those blue eyes--sharp and clear--but after a quick judgement and a glance to Sara, the girl nodded.
Ray would've probably been able to lift her easily alone, but the suit allowed him to scoop her up and briskly run towards the exit. Sara followed them. She extended her staff as she cleared the door and barked off commands to the Legends, adrenalin rushing and a small smirk playing at her lips. "Ray, get her to the ship. Nate, go with him to protect the kid. Rory, you're with me and we're holding off whoever that alarm called." Ray and Nate ran off with the kid into the hallway and she waited on the nod of confirmation from Mick. The Captain touched her comm, "Jax, ready the Waverider to take off as soon as we get back. Martin, I need you in the Med Bay."
"Is someone hurt?" Stein asked worridly, having dropped his book to answer the command quickly.
Sara decided to answer as honestly--with the little information she had herself--as she could for this one. "There was a kid in Lab and she's not in great shape. Ray and Nate are bringing her back now and we're cleaning up the mess on the way back." The Captain heard several words of confirmation before following Ray and Nate out of the doorway they'd ran through several moments before.
In those moments, Ray, Nate, and the half-aware Juliette had gotten an impressive distance down the hall without incident. The girl focused on the sounds of the heavy steps of the metal suit carrying and kept her eyes closed. The small posse came across a four-way intersection in the hallway and Nate lead them to the right. As soon as they turned the corner, Nate sensed tension. He steeled up just in time to block bullets from penetrating his skin. The hero saw a small militia of at least a dozen heavily armed men shooting at them and managed to push Ray and the girl to cover around the corner.
"There's at least ten of them." He ducked behind the wall as he talked to Ray. "They've got a lot of firepower. Like, alot."
Ray looked to the girl in his arms, trying to make a fast decision. He didn't particularly want to leave the girl vulnerable, but there was no way they could clear the hallway with his handful. It was the only way back to the ship. "I'm gonna set you down." He was careful to keep his movements gentle in his suit. "Just for a moment." Ray saw the girl was struggling to keep herself together. Her skin was wet and her eyes were tightly squeezed together in attempt to shut out the world. "Hang in there." He encouraged before rounding the corner with Nate.
The two men charged down the hall towards the group, bullets recaching with small metal 'dings'. Men were falling right and left, collapsing unresponsively into doorways or hiding behind drawers and counters of equipment. It took only moments and a few swings for Ray and Nate to take out the small army, The Atom holding the last fighting man still so that Steel could have the honors of punching him unconscious.
They high-fived when all the men were down, gazing around their motionless battlefield with a sense of victory, before remembering their mission; the kid.
Ray rushed back to the intersection, really only a couple hundred feet behind them. Nate followed. They found the girl laying on the ground, visibly damp from stress and anxiety she must have been feeling. She had moved several feet from where they had left her and Ray inwardly scolded her for stepping into danger.
Further down the hallway, Nate noticed a pair of unconscious guards. He figured the girl was coming to warn them of the threat behind them and scanned her for possible bullet wounds. Upon finding none, he realized he felt grateful to the kid. She was brave, wanting to warn them, even though their recachaded bullets put them down anyway. Nate helped return her to Ray's arms. The girl would be rewarded for her bravery by safe passage back to the Waverider. For some reason, the Captain--and the rest of the Legends, by extension--had insisted on rescuing the girl. That reason was that she was, somehow, a misfit or an outcast. Nate could clearly tell she had been through some serious trauma. But, so had they all. Her bravery, though, made her special. Nate proudly returned to the Waverider with the girl.