A/N: At long last, chapter seven is here. A big thanks to all who reviewed the last chapter! You know who you are, you awesome people!
Keep an eye out for the next chapter soon - For Great Justice!
Chapter Seven: Dungeon Crawler
The drugs flowing thickly through her veins made her vision blur sickeningly, made it feel as though cockroaches were crawling beneath her skin. Meg convulsed as the crawling feeling ran up her body, panting hard as she tried to resist the effects of the drug.
She saw Angelique's cold smile before the drugs hallucinatory effects flowed through her senses, lulling her from fear into… apathy.
Helplessly, she divulged information about herself and Jo that she had always held so close to her heart. The events of New York. Her feelings of uselessness and failure. And most frightening of all, her buried feelings for the gunner were laid bare to the Ishtar Club.
It was freedom. It was terrifying.
She blinked, and it seemed that Jo was before her. A smile was on her lips, her crimson eyes welcoming as she held out a hand. Meg glided forwards, placing her hand in Jo's.
She blinked again, and Jo's lips were on her own. Meg groaned deeply as Jo's lips grazed her throat roughly. Something was wrong. Something. Why was Jo… why did Jo know?
She blinked once more, and the illusion shattered. Yoko stood before her, smiling still.
"MEG!" A voice snarled from above, and suddenly Meg woke up.
"Meg! Can you hear me? Meg?!"
Meg's eyes cracked open, and all she could see was the light from comm. link she'd forgotten she had had strapped to her forearm. Typical. Typical hot-headed, harebrained fool that she always was…
She closed her eyes again, an involuntary groan escaping her lips. If she'd thought she'd been in pain before… her breath hitched painfully, and she was dead certain she'd cracked a rib again. The doc was going to kill her. Groaning again, Meg forced herself to a sitting position, her eyes working to resolve the darkness around her.
Burying her face in her hand, she grumbled into the comm. link,
"Yeah, I hear you, Sei."
"Thank god. Ever since you vanished off the radar-" Sei's voice cut off abruptly before demanding, "What the hell happened?"
"Kruegar," Meg muttered as she removed her goggles from her eyes, rubbing them clean with her free hand. "Why didn't you tell me he was a goddamn cyborg? I would have done this whole thing differently if I'd known before I'd engaged!"
Or would she have? The confirmation of Maria's life and interest in Meg was certainly a valuable piece of information… Meg quashed the thought. No need for Sei to know that.
"When would I have told you that, Meg? After you'd run off to engage the enemy before getting the full intel on the situation? After you vanished from the Elizabeth completely? After Hirao nearly blew your head off? Or maybe while you rejected all our attempts to contact you and send in Jango R?" Sei's voice was mildly acidic, and with good reason, Meg supposed.
"Yeah, yeah. Tell me some other time. I was fighting Kruegar, that little shit of an agent interferes and I go chasing Kruegar through the whole city. We get to the abandoned construction sites, and then Ormicon shows up. Kruegar does this thing and collapses the ground below us, and here we are." Meg let her goggles fall down around her neck, sighing. "Where am I, Sei?"
There was silence as Sei digested Meg's report.
"If I could hazard a guess, you are in the derelict subway. It was abandoned when the old president of RAPT turned monster and began tearing up the lines. The government has more worries to take care of than restoring a line that's no longer used. I'm sure you remember that Jo was called in to take out the beast before it did any more harm."
It was also the beginning of the end of our world, Sei's implied words continued on.
"Right." Meg squinted in the darkness around her, searching for the familiar but unwelcome shape of the cyborg's body. "Kruegar seems to have high-tailed it out of here. No body, just a bit of green blood."
It seems as though I got a few good hits on him, the smugger part of Meg's mind crowed, though she didn't voice her satisfaction. Perhaps it was best to leave the bragging for now, when Sei wasn't as annoyed with her.
"So he left when Ormicon showed up. Interesting. For now, Kruegar is not our target to pursue, and I mean that, Meg. Just find your way out of the subway and return to the Elizabeth. Amy will upload maps to the comm., so follow those to find an exit. How are you holding up?"
"The usual," Meg laughed, climbing to her feet and ignoring the dizzying spin in her head. "Dr. Irukon is going to kill me."
"Not if I see you first."
It was with that tart remark that Sei cut off communication. Meg grimaced, looking around the rubble that surrounded her, and then craned her neck up. The sky was a patch of blue high above her, and she had to wonder how far she'd fallen, and how she survived. There were no signs of Ormicon's hired men, and no way could Meg hope to make it up to the surface from here. The debris from above made passage in one direction impossible. In Meg's condition it was, anyhow. It'd have been tough going even if she'd been one hundred percent.
Chewing her lip in frustration, Meg had to admit there was really no other option than to continue on. The risk of encountering Kruegar was greatly increased, and she really didn't want to hurt herself any more than she already had. In her disarmed and weak state, she was certain she would not come out of that meeting alive, no matter how unpredictable the madman could be. Meg started down the darkened subway, the small LCD flashlight lighting her way as she limped over the rubble.
The concrete walls were crammed with graffiti and anti-RAPT slogans, with the scatterings of wanted posters causing Meg to wonder how often this section of the subway had actually been used since the closure. She stored it in the back of her mind for future reference; if things in Shibuya slowed down, perhaps the darker elements of Tokyo would move here. It was certainly inaccessible enough.
She wasn't sure how long she walked down the dark tunnels, following the blurry and outdated map of the subway Amy had uploaded. Many of the exit routes had been blocked off by an avalanche of rubble – that made Meg frown a little. It blocked the obvious exits, but following that, it blocked the obvious entries to the abandoned subway. Had it been intentional? Meg's fingers itched for the comfort of her guns. There was really no use – she doubted she'd be seeing those guns again, lost to either the subway or Ormicon.
As the blockages drove Meg deeper into the labyrinth, she paused by a large section of concrete that had been ripped from the walls. She wet her lips suddenly, her ears straining through the oppressive silence. Every nerve in her body felt afire – she could hear the faint scratching of rodent claws over rock, the drip of water down iron –
There it was. The sound of a motor humming, of wheels grinding over rubble. Meg's eyes narrowed as the sound drew closer. It seemed to be approaching her position at quite a pace –
Meg ducked behind the slab of concrete, her breath frozen in her throat as a set of high-powered headlights rounded the bend. A small truck, Meg decided to herself as it drew near, unmarked and mistreated. She crouched in apprehensive silence as the lights passed by, and made her split-second decision. Ignoring the stab in her ribs, she surged from out behind the slab and hooked her battered fingers around the bars at the rear of the truck and hoisted herself onto it without missing a beat. There was no change in the truck's speed.
Looks like I made it without being detected. In your face, Amy! I have stealth when I need it!
There was really no reason to keep walking if she could hitch a ride with these guys, was there? Meg pressed a hand to her side gently, and then forced her mind onto other things.
As lucky as she was to find a truck down here – of all places – some things were too weird to be put up to coincidence. Things like guards patrolling what was meant to be an abandoned subway section. What were they doing down here? How had they gotten down here, if all the entrances were blockaded? Was something down here?
A chill went through her stomach as the truck took a turn from the main tunnel, into an area that had been marked on Meg's maps as unusable. Clearly, Amy's maps were out of date. 'Unusable' her butt…
The truck began to slow without warning, jolting Meg out of her thoughts. Biting back a curse, Meg craned her neck around the side of the truck for a quick look. It appeared to be some sort of construction, thrown into harsh relief by the truck's strong headlights. A few lights flashed from a small camera tucked into the corner of the structure.
A security checkpoint, Meg surmised grimly. She wondered how many of those she'd passed under while stumbling in the dark tunnels, then squashed the thoughts ruthlessly. No time for ifs, buts or maybes…
As the truck slowed to a stop, the engine grinding to an unsteady halt, Meg bit her lip as she heard the front doors creak open.
"Damn security checks," one man grumbled as he slammed the truck's door shut. Meg ducked back behind the truck, her mind working furiously. They'd probably do a quick check for things out of the norm, she decided. Just a quick one – maybe she shouldn't even be worried.
"I swear, you bitch about this every single time," the other man complained, his flashlight darting over the rubble in the distance past Meg. "It gets really old, man."
"Shut your mouth, you insolent pup. Respect your elders."
"Elders? You're a few months older than I am!"
"Point still stands. Let's just keep going, sooner we get there the sooner we can leave. That way she won't be able to tell us we didn't do our job this time."
Meg heard the crunch of gravel as the first man turned to get back in the truck. The cabin's door slammed shut unceremoniously, leaving Meg and the second man alone. The man muttered something uncomplimentary under his breath, switching his flashlight off.
Meg breathed a sigh of relief as the second door clicked shut and the engine roared to life once more. She adjusted her grip on the bars at the back of the truck as it began to move again, further into the labyrinth subway and past the checkpoint. Meg carefully swung around to the side of the truck as they passed beneath the security camera, wary of being caught. With such security on an abandoned subway, it really brought up a few questions.
Where were they going? What was their purpose down here? Meg considered signalling Bai-Lan for any information they could dredge up on this place, but decided against it. The signal would be like a beacon if they passed beneath another checkpoint. She also wasn't sure if she wanted to deal with Amy just yet, either…
Sei rubbed her temples, looking down at Amy. The girl who'd been Sei's near-constant companion since the formation of her Bai-Lan cell had been treated, a bandage wrapped around her head and under her bangs. The hacker still looked a little dazed by the impact with the keyboard, and Sei and forced her to stay awake and aware since they'd finally gotten through to Meg.
"Where's Meg now?" Amy drawled, blinking a few times to clear her eyes.
"Abandoned subway," Sei nodded to the maps.
"The same one with the monster infestation from way back?" the girl yawned widely. "Don't envy her. Worried."
Sei nodded, gently grabbing a hold of Amy's arm and towing her to her feet. It was unlike Amy to talk like this, not without some absurd posturing or vitriolic remarks. Had that keyboard hit her hard enough to concuss her? Sei's lips thinned – Amy would have to go to Irukon now, she decided suddenly. She was no good to Sei as she was, and Nana and Hachi could finish cataloguing the damage to the hold in peace, even without their leader.
The hallways were full of Bai-Lan agents that had been recalled to counter a now non-existent threat, Sei noted with disgust at herself. There was no threat now, now that all of her agents had been recalled from their missions.
She internally cursed. How would this cost their operations? She knew of a few more delicate ones that had been interrupted…
The harried Bai-Lan leader dropped Amy off at the doctor's office with a nurse that had been called in. Doctor Irukon had taken charge of any first aid needed down at the holds, the nurse told Sei distractedly as she ushered the hurt girl into the office. Sei nodded her thanks, and quickly made her way down to the ruins of what had been the hold of the Elizabeth.
The air had a slight acrid quality to it, and a faint haze of smoke still shrouded the hallways. She pushed her way past a few of her agents, her brow creasing as she took in the damage. A few days ago, she would have been surprised at the lengths Ormicon had gone to, just to get their hands on the body of an insane vagrant. Of course, a few days ago she hadn't known that the man's body was a goldmine of the finest RAPT technology, a war machine that hadn't yet been activated. The parts that could have been salvaged would have been worth a fortune in contacts, in technology, in respect and prominence in their field.
Perhaps, had Bai-Lan been in that kind of business, she'd have jumped at the chance herself. Doubtless, the council would be up in arms over the loss of such income – not that it would be any different from usual. The Council of Five disliked having a don with power and the strength of will to use it.
She wondered if her grandfather had been like her, once – defiant of the council, making his own way as the world's problems reached boiling point and many countries self destructed under the pressure.
"Don Laoban!"
Sei's head turned automatically to the name, and she offered the approaching man a smile. Jon Black had been one of Sei's first employees after the RAPT coup d'état, a man who had canvassed the ruins of RAPT HQ tirelessly, for the sole reason that it was his job. He'd been employed by RAPT in Japan, following the self destruction of the United State's economy and the increasing anarchy in the states. Now, he belonged to Sei and Bai-Lan.
"Just Sei, Jon," Sei told him firmly, walking forwards to the hole blown in the hold of her ship. She could see that their area of the wharf had been sectioned off by her agents. There were a few groups of bystanders gawking at the gap in the large ship's armour. Her mouth thinned; there wasn't much they could do about the gawkers.
"Sei, then," Black agreed affably, stopping a few feet behind her. "Just the usual opinion, or was there something else?"
"I need to confirm my suspicions, first. Currently, what do you believe happened?" Sei watched a pair of her agents chase away a group of onlookers that got too close to the containment line, waiting as Black ordered his thoughts and his deductions.
"Right now? I believe there was something with immense firepower contained in here." She felt him shrug. "I have no idea what, but it was enough to take out the Ormicon guys over there and then create an explosion big enough to blow through the Elizabeth's reinforced armour. That stuff's the best you can buy, but that thing was strong enough to blast through it like cheap Perspex. It's not a question of if you had something in here that Ormicon wanted badly. It's a question of what."
Black had always been sharp, so Sei waited a few moments for him to continue. What conclusions could he draw, with limited intelligence on the situation?
He sighed.
"By the layout of the hold and the extra topping of security set up here –"
Sei raised an eyebrow at that. How had he known about Amy's surveillance and the agent shifts?
"-I'd say you knew what you had, Sei, and you had it laid out on the bench in the centre of the room. Judging by the lack of restraints, you didn't believe it would become the threat it did, but you did expect Ormicon to come and claim it. Given the unique green compound I found on that bench, I'd say either a RAPT-brand mutant or a RAPT-brand cyborg. Since there is a liberal spray of bullets in the hall, it's the latter."
She smiled. "Very good, Jon. So given the security, that I told Ormicon that I would not be eagerly handing the body over, why would they risk a business relationship with a powerful organization, over what looked to them to be a homeless RAPT prisoner?"
"They knew, of course. Maybe that's why they hired Bai-Lan. Not to keep the Ormicon president safe, but to put the dangerous cyborg out of commission without wasting their own manpower? To a company like that, hiring Bai-Lan would be a mere pittance compared to what they could gain from the cyborg's parts."
Sei stared thoughtfully out over the bay. "So they knew. How? And why did Kruegar intend to kill Morholt? The bomb threat was certainly real enough," she told Black grimly.
"Who knows? Maybe Morholt had links to RAPT, back in the day."
"Maybe," Sei said, deliberately non-committal as she looked around the clearing hold. Doctor Irukon was bent over the bodies of her agents now, his work on the Ormicon men done. Lingering at the hold entrance, though, was a boy. Not much older than fifteen, Hirao had joined Bai-Lan's agents a year or so ago. Sei had been apprehensive about his age, before being forcefully reminded by the council that she had been fourteen when she first started working on Bai-Lan's raids, and that many of her personal team had been under seventeen.
The boy was gifted, certainly. There wasn't a better shot around. But the pale-haired boy had a sullen look about him, as if it inconvenienced him greatly to be a part of Bai-Lan and on equal footing with the other agents. There was an anger, simmering just beneath the calm surface of his eyes that made Sei feel… reluctant to trust him with major missions.
She turned away from him, allowing Black to return to his job and walking over to where the doctor was busily checking over the burnt remains of the two agents that had been on duty. She tightened her hand into a fist, feeling the scarred skin stretch taut. They had been unfortunate indeed.
"What can you tell me, Doctor?" Sei asked the crouching man in a low voice, kneeling down beside him as he gently turned over the corpse with his gloved hands.
Irukon looked over his square-rimmed glasses at her, meeting her eyes forcefully. Polite, but unscrupulous indeed.
"The Ormicon men most certainly killed our agents. Lorn and Hendrik were shot several times. Doesn't match the shots on the Ormicon men, no."
Sei watched as Irukon peeled the burned clothes from Hendrik, before pushing her sick fascination aside. No use wondering what the coroners would have done to her body, had she not survived the RAPT HQ assault.
"So Ormicon came in, blasted our troops. Kruegar woke up and mowed them down, then opened a hole in my ship, all in a matter of around about a second?" Sei sighed. Why were things getting complicated?
"Seems that way to me, Don Laoban," Irukon told her smoothly as he motioned for a pair of agents to place some body bags next to him. Sei pushed herself to her feet, her mind working.
There was a lot going on here, she decided grimly as she left the hold. There was a lot she didn't know yet – she'd have to be careful. No good showing her cards, not before she was certain. Her mouth tightened, and she wondered how Meg was faring in her journey back to the surface. She debated sending troops in to fetch the wayward agent, but decided against it. Meg was fully capable of finding her own way back.
There was really no need for Bai-Lan to waste any more resources today than it already had.
By Meg's count, they were travelling an hour before the truck finally began to slow again, squeaking to a halt. Meg took a breath, leaning around the side of the truck again as the engine shuddered and died. They had arrived at a large hollow in the track, with a featureless but derelict concrete building in the centre. Her eyes narrowed, and she quickly strapped her goggles on. She doubted that this building had been here, back when the rails had still been in use. Which meant that it was less than five years old, and had been built to stay out of the eye of the Hanshin-Tokyo police force. Suddenly, the blockaded entrances made a little more sense.
They hadn't wanted to keep people in – they had wanted to keep people out. She was certain of it.
"You really think the clean-up crew duty is necessary?" the 'older' man asked as he got out of the truck's cabin, stretching loudly. Meg eyed him – he was a big man, maybe twenty-five to thirty years old. Physically fit, but his movements lacked the control of a trained fighter.
"After all these years? They barely need guys like us anymore," the 'younger' man agreed, leaning against the front of the truck and pulling a pack of cigarettes from his pocket. "Harvey, you got a light?"
"Palm me off one of those, and I might," the older was grinning. There was a pause as both lit up. "Evac on this place has been officially put at a week ago, when a couple of fools made it past the checkpoints and managed to get away from the elimination crew. Couldn't risk them going to the coppers, so Grenville ordered speedy evac of the major equipment and subjects. Since there's still a bit left over, this old cleaning crew has been sent in to get rid of the dirty laundry." The older began to pace up and down the length of the truck.
"God, I hate clean-up," the younger complained. Meg edged around the back of the vehicle, soundless as possible. She tried to time her steps with the older man's, trying to cover the sound of her footsteps on gravel with his. The younger man's head came into view. He was blissfully unaware of the danger as Meg mentally calculated the force she'd need to take him out.
"Now who's bitching?"
"Heh," the younger snickered, pushing himself up from the truck and flicking the stub of his cigarette away. "Whatever, man."
Meg ducked back into the darkness as the younger man rounded the front of the truck, passing from the safety of the headlights and into Meg's territory. She watched him approach silently, then swiftly stepped into his path.
The man's eyes had just enough time to widen in shock before her hand crashed into the side of his neck, stunning him. She knocked his feet from under him and stepped behind him in one smooth motion, catching his dead weight against her and locking her arms around his neck in a chokehold, ignoring the sudden explosion of pain from her side. He twitched, scrabbling uselessly at her arms for a moment, but his body quickly slackened. She pressed her bared fingers to the pulse at his neck before nodding, panting from the fresh wave of pain. Just enough to knock him out for a bit, Meg surmised. That was all she'd needed.
She gently and soundlessly lowered the man to the rubble-strewn ground, knowing that the easy part was over. She had to get the bigger one before he realized what was happening and radioed for help. Her cracked ribs were making it hard to breathe – taking him out had been harder than she'd thought… Meg gritted her teeth.
"Kent?" the older man asked suddenly, as Meg straightened. He was inside the truck now, scratching around at whatever supplies they'd brought. "Can you give me a hand unloading these barrels? Too much for one man, y'know."
Meg nodded to herself as she silently moved around. She leaned on the outside of the truck, slipping on her glove again, tensing her hands into fists. She had to do this fast – her ribs weren't going to let her win an all-out brawl with this huge guy. One lucky hit to the torso and she'd be out.
If you're going to do it, do it quickly and cleanly, that cold voice in her head told her bluntly – Meg flexed her sore arms and clenched her fists again, waiting.
"Yo! Kent! Seriously! Get your arse in here and help!"
She didn't have to wait for long as Harvey cursed loudly, his heavy footsteps thundering to the rear of the vehicle. The man peered outside, his eyes searching for Kent. It was all Meg needed as she smashed her fist into the unwary man's jaw, sending him staggering against the side of the truck. Flinching at the pain in her ribs, Meg frowned, looking at her fist. It felt like it was bruising already, so that strike should have knocked him flat. Maybe she'd have to hit him harder next time, if her damn ribs would let her.
"Oh Jesus!" Harvey roared, lurching over to the rear of the truck and stumbling down the steps. "Damnit, what the hell?!"
Meg slipped behind him silently, planting her leg behind him and wrenching him off balance. She gasped, trying to ignore the pain as his full weight fell on her, her ribs burning cruelly. Using his own weight against him, she caught him in a chokehold, resisting his flailing attempts at hitting her until he stilled. With a grunt, she released him, gently lowering the large man to the ground. His fluttering pulse told her that he'd survived her brutal treatment of him, and she nodded. Now, what to do with these idiots…?
The truck's open doors caught her eye, and Meg smirked. Using a few lengths of twine she found by rummaging in the supplies, she bound the pair's wrists together behind them, before binding the men to the back of the truck.
There, Meg nodded as she finished. Easy, right?
She pressed a hand to her ribs again, flinching at the pain the light pressure caused. God, she hoped she wasn't going to encounter any more people in this place. She wasn't sure she could subdue any others. These two had been risky enough.
She sighed and straightened, favouring her left side as she began to walk towards the large concrete building. Unlike the rest of the subway, the featureless walls were free of anti-RAPT slogans and graffiti. It certainly looked worse for wear, yes, but it was clean. That was troubling enough in itself. If that was so, and the cleaner's talk was to be believed, there had been a significant guard posted here. She frowned as she neared the building, staring up at it with a feeling of dawning apprehension starting in her stomach.
The large, sliding metal doors had been left open and unlocked, Meg noted as she slid into the darkness of the building. She activated her flashlight with a flick of her wrist, locating the light switch quickly and powering on the building's lights.
It was a big, empty room at first glance – probably a loading room or a storage facility. Perhaps it had been used in a drug syndicate's operations? Meg stepped forwards, her footsteps echoing loudly in the silence. The lights were well maintained, however mistreated the outside of the building had been. She supposed the two cleaners had been right, that the syndicate had only left here recently.
A small passageway leading from the main loading room caught her searching eyes, and Meg followed the bend of the corridor slowly. Her hands itched for her guns – a useless feeling, but that didn't stop the feeling that she was walking unarmed into certain danger. The passageway was not long, and was relatively well lit when it opened into a smaller, cluttered room full of broken parts of… something.
Meg's brow creased as she surveyed the broken parts.
Abandoned quickly, for sure, Meg thought as she threaded her way through the littering of broken pipes, shattered glass and weaponry.
Sure, I guess it could be the work of a drug ring, but…
Meg knelt, sifting her gloved fingers through the shattered glass. It was thickened and reinforced. It didn't really speak of a drug ring's prep labs.
She slowly got to her feet, letting herself favour her left side as she moved on, passing the room with the broken equipment and into the next – a smaller room this time, but with more intact equipment. Large tubes lined the walls, some empty, some cracked open, some full of a liquid with –
Cyborg parts? People?
Their eyes were empty and glazed, staring past Meg and into the oblivion beyond. Dead already, dead for years. Some had odd growths, bulging veins, bones protruding from their flesh like horns or spikes. Meg pressed her hands to the smooth surface of the reinforced glass, her mind working. The sick certainty in her gut was almost too much as she looked into the last few tubes.
Cybernetic brains, just like so long ago.
Meg swallowed suddenly as she followed the only logical conclusion to that thought.
RAPT.
A deserted RAPT base, only recently abandoned. Her mind ticked over. This was the closest she'd been in four whole years of chasing the elusive RAPT shadow.
She grinned suddenly. If they'd only just been here, then maybe, just maybe, there'd be some clues to follow.
Leaving the room behind her, she threaded her way through the warren of rooms, seeking out something; she wasn't sure what. A map, a hint as to where their next base was. Some sort of network she could give to Amy to hack into, some notion of who RAPT was now, how they could elude everything Bai-Lan and the police threw at them so thoroughly. Anything.
Finally, Meg came to what seemed to be a command room. A large computer – dead now, and probably wiped clean, too – was built at the far end, the screen seeming to take up the entire wall. She scanned the other walls, seeking out a large map of the lab. It had been near torn off the wall, as if the vandal had been in a great rush, leaving only half the map usable now.
Holding cells, Meg read on the remaining good half of the map. Not far from here, tucked in behind the equipment room. I wonder. And if I find something? Worse, what if I find nothing?
Better to act now, than regret later, the more logical part of her rationalized, and Meg nodded to herself. Galvanised, the mercenary made her way to the area of the laboratory that had been labelled as the RAPT holding cells. Had Kruegar been in a place like this, all these years he'd been under RAPT arrest? She shuddered as the twisted cybernetic parts, floating in formaldehyde came to mind.
Jo, hold on a bit longer for me.
The area allegedly known as the 'holding cells' was definitely worse for wear than the rest of the laboratory, Meg surmised with a scowl as she eased the sliding doors open. The walls were dirty and scuffed, the lights flickering, dimmed. Then again, this was RAPT. They had no minimum standards for their prisoners. There was a strange smell in the air; she couldn't quite place it.
On the far wall of the room, there was a line of ten cells, each of the doors painted in the same whitewash as the rest of the lab's interior, the paint scuffed and scratched, the windows barred. Meg swallowed, walking silently to the first cell.
She gagged as the reek of rotting flesh suddenly made itself known – she stumbled backwards, trying to shove the image of the blood-smeared white walls, the hands still locked in metal cuffs to the walls, hewed off from the arms and oh god the smell-
Meg took a shaky breath, trying to calm her ragged nerves. She knew all about RAPT, she knew how violent they could be, how ruthless, she knew damnit.
Yeah, right, the traitorous voice in the rear of her mind whispered.
The voice was right. She hadn't been prepared to come face to face with RAPT's worst, she realized dully as she approached the windows of the second cell.
How the hell could she face Jo if she didn't even have the nerve to view RAPT at its very worst? Meg clenched her teeth, galvanising herself. She could – would – do this.
The next few cells held the scattered remains of bodies – a few cybernetic parts, a few bones that the rats had already picked clean, a foot here, a hand there. As the cell numbers went on, the larger the amount of remains became. A shattered torso, a head with the mouth still bared in a scream of agony. Meg squeezed her eyes shut for a moment, forcing herself to look at this objectively. Look at it like it didn't bother her, just pretend it didn't bother her, what would Jo do in her position?
Meg opened her eyes, steeling herself again. The rooms looked eerily similar to the room on the tape stills that the RAPT employee had sent her. Yes, it had to have been here or somewhere very similar, maybe a lab built with an identical plan. This whole thing could easily be a thousand square metres all up; maybe Amy could run a list of possibilities and algorithms to suss out potential lab locations. Disused areas, just like this one. Mysterious blockades, a reluctance by the government to do anything about the abandoned area…
Her mouth tightened as she unbolted the final cell's door. A battered-looking camera was tucked into the upper right hand corner of the cell, pointed at the filthy, blood-splattered mattress.
Less blood than the others, Meg thought vaguely, kneeling by the bed and fingering the blood-caked restraints. No body parts left over, either. So is this just an old cell, or was the specimen important enough to move to the new location?
There were a few lumps of darker grey substance smeared on the head of the mattress, and Meg brushed them with the tips of her gloved fingers. As the lumps crumbled away from her, the sense of déjà vu washed over her mind.
Just like before, she mused. Remnants of the cybernetic brains. But I thought Sei destroyed the central brain?
Meg's eyes narrowed thoughtfully. Maybe they've constructed a new one? Perhaps that's why they've kept Jo alive. Maybe they needed someone already attuned to the proper wavelength…? Since Jo is the only survivor of Project Zero…
She straightened slowly, taking care of her cracked ribs. Maybe it was time to patch a signal through to the Elizabeth, to let them know what she'd found and to get a proper investigation by Bai-Lan going. Maybe Sei would be a little easier on the lecture she was bound to give Meg on her return, Meg hoped sourly as she checked the signal on her comm. link.
Huh, that's odd. No signal now. Maybe I'm further underground than I thought…? Or this place has jammers all over it. Meg nearly threw the comm. link at the wall. Damn it all.
Meg sighed, rubbing her ribs. The limp back towards the command room long, her mind racing with all this new information she'd found. All the possibilities, the options… She leaned against the wall, trying to catch her shortened breath. The sooner she got out of here, though, the better. Pushing herself off again, she crossed the command room quickly before slumping into the chair at the large screen.
"Now," she muttered distractedly. "What did Amy say about patching signals again…? Argh, damn it!" She wished she'd paid a little more attention while the hacker had explained how to hijack unused networks and channels. It seemed like ages ago now.
She switched on the computer and large monitor. While the preset communication channels would be wiped, along with all of the lab information, Meg was fairly certain she might be able to send a simple, outgoing signal in the usual Bai-Lan code. After that, it would just be a matter of Nana and Hachi tracing back the signal to the source and sending teams into the subway for a full recovery operation.
She just thanked whatever gods were listening, that the communication equipment was still working. Perhaps the cleanup crews hadn't gotten around to the switch, yet.
Meg couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief as she finalized the code, sending it spiralling out into the ether and hoped to god that Amy, Nana or Hachi came across it soon. Leaning back in her chair, she laid a gentle hand on her ribs. Yeah, it'd be nice to get out of here soon.
A beeping from the empty monitor alerted her to an incoming video call – did she want to accept? Meg snorted, confirming the request. The video call flickered onto the large screen – Meg's eyes widened in shock.
A pair of red, narrowed eyes gazed out of the screen and into Meg's. A cold smile played across the other's lips, her long silver hair cut short now. Meg swallowed – it had been a very long time since she'd personally witnessed the deranged stare that could only be Maria's.
"Greetings, Meg," the visage of Maria smirked down at the surprised woman. She seemed relaxed, like she'd been expecting to see Meg right there, right then.
Meg's chair fell backwards, and the redhead slowly realized that she was on her feet, crouched in a battle stance. No matter – not when the white hot rage was flowing through her veins like magma.
"Maria," Meg bit out, her teeth bared in a snarl. "What the hell do you want?"
Maria seemed to chortle at her ferocity, tilting her head to the side as if observing a small child at play. "Such a loud bark, for such a helpless bitch."
"Helpless?" the mercenary spat, unable to believe Maria's gall. After all she'd been through, after all she'd improved-
"Can't see the forest for the trees," Maria sighed, leaning forwards. Meg had a clear view of her ample cleavage. "I always liked that about you, Meg. So innocent, in spite of your job."
"Good for you. Now what do you want?" There was little chance Maria would let slip her current location; that meant that the genocide angel had a reason for contacting Meg here, now. She had to find out what it was, before she threw a cybernetic arm through the screen in a fit of rage.
Maria sighed again, this one sounding almost regretful. Meg wasn't fooled for a moment.
"There are things in this world that are far bigger than you, Meg. There are things bigger than I, as well. And it all connects at one place – and I'm sure you know where."
If she'd been a dog, Meg's hackles would have been raised.
"Jo."
The woman on the comm. link nodded, smiling cruelly again - and then slammed a formaldehyde jar on the control panel at the other end of the link. Something was floating in it – Meg frowned. Something small-
She gagged. It was a red eye, nerves and all, bobbing up and down in the clear liquid. Meg barely heard Maria's whispered threat, but she did.
"So, I'm sure you see it now, Meg. If you don't call off your little search for our research specimen, I just may take the other, too."
