Woop woop, late again! Monday was Columbus Day here in 'Murica, and had school off, so it's fcked up my schedule a bit, but it should resume to normal next week.
We're starting off with Rex, Abe, Salem and Ema, and Kateri's meeting is next chapter(which, not gonna lie, I'm super unhappy with, but I don't know how else to write it that what I've already got). Just a warning, the next couple chapters are kinda boring, but important.
So yeah, that's it...
When they arrived at the coordinates provided by Kateri, Rex wasn't entirely sure what to expect. Maybe some tall building made of glass with fancy high-tech doors, or maybe something a little more classic, like over-embellished stonework and marble steps.
What he didn't think he'd get was a small building that, by closest description, looked like a warehouse of sorts. Not nearly as run down as a warehouse would be, no, as it still was completely clean with pristine windows and a well taken care of exterior. But it looked as though someone had simply renovated an old warehouse to serve as an office building.
There was nothing to indicate what the company was for, either, just a sign that stated Jessup Enterprises in a generic green font. It looked for all the world like another out-of-the-way business.
"Huh." was the only comment Abe had to make.
"So I take it I'm not the only one who thinks they are fools." Ema commented.
"Nope." Abe said.
"What do you mean? This place is totally below the radar." Rex said.
Abe looked over at him. "Logically, if you had to pick from a small building isolated in the middle of nowhere, or a massive high-rise with all sorts of locks and passcodes to get in, which do you think the bad guys would be in? The one that's meant to be obvious because it's so high-profile, or the one that looks like it's meant to be hidden?"
"Oh…" Rex was beginning to see his point. While it may not be obvious to a random passerby, it would be the ideal place for a secret facility of one was looking for one.
"So," Abe continued. "this tells me one of two things; they are completely stupid, or they are extremely confident. If it's the latter, you'll normally find out they're more confident than the ones who do have the skyscrapers and hide in plain sight. They don't feel the need to hide as much, they only need to be inconspicuous to the public. But on the inside, they're probably watertight, especially since, given the small size, almost anything worth seeing is underground."
"So, that's bad?" Rex summed up.
"Assuming these people are as smart as Arrow's said, then yeah, it means it's gonna be harder." Abe said.
"Whoop de fuckin' do." grumbled Salem. "Well, better get moving then, I doubt we're gonna get far gawking at the place."
"Fair enough." said Abe. "Let's move."
(*)
Rex regretted it. Oh boy, he regretted it. Why didn't he just stay at Providence and let the archer do her thing?
Oh yeah. He had a conscience. Right.
Which is why he was currently cramped in a ventilation shaft with Salem and Ema, the three of them unable to drop down lower because the crawlspace was too small. Abe was talking back and forth to Ema, who was at the bottom, working on hacking open the vent door to allow them access to the rest of the shafts. Why was it locked in the first place? Rex didn't know and really could not care less right then.
This left the other three stuck in the first one, legs folded in front of them and pressing to the opposite wall to keep from crashing down on top of one another. This also left Rex with a dull ache in his thighs, who pushed with more force than he probably needed to because he was the last one to enter the vent and should he slip, everyone was coming down.
"Hang on, I almost...got it!" Abe announced in a quiet voice and there was a soft hum as the doors to the vent opened up, revealing a long duct.
"Great, now can you move so we can get the hell down?" Salem hissed is a harsh whisper. "You forget I'm wearing a shit load of padding and crap and being squished up like this isn't that fun."
Abe chuckled at her obvious discomfort, but obliged. Ema shimmied down the shaft, quickly followed by Salem and Rex.
"Feel better now?" Abe asked, grinning.
"Just shut up and go." the girl grumbled.
"Why don't you two be quiet." Ema said. She'd had enough of their pointless bickering. "Can we act like the vigilantees we are for a few hours and not like children?"
She was almost grateful there was no response.
They carefully crawled through the duct making as little noise as possible, following Abe's lead.
After a few minutes, the lanky blond came to a halt. "Okay, I think this is where we get into the actual main part of the building. Rex, can you shut of the sensors?"
Rex nodded, shifting so he was in a low crouch and the Latino placed his hands on either side of the ventilation duct. The metal walls were actually humming with technology, unlike an ordinary shaft. Blue lines branched out from beneath his palms. They pulsated for a long moment, and he felt the hum change frequency as he turned off some of the functions, while tricking the system into thinking they were still on.
"Got it." he said less than a minute later, leaning forward again. "The sensors are off, but it won't set off anything."
"You sure?" asked Salem.
Rex didn't respond. Of course he was sure, he could sense what the technology was doing. Or rather, his nanites could.
"Rex, can you tell if there's anything poisonous in the fume vents?" Ema asked after a moment.
"Uh, I can if there's some kind of sensor in them that can tell them apart. Otherwise no." he answered.
"I thought so. I suppose we can test that theory of it comes to that." she mused.
"Or we can not. We have four backup plans, one's got to work." countered Salem.
"Guys, shhh, we don't know how our voices carry. This is why I don't bring you on stealth missions." Abe muttered.
Salem huffed, but both girls fell silent.
Rex wondered how the trio ever got anything accomplished. The amount they bickered was a little ridiculous to be all that productive, and yet it had been made to seem like they functioned well as a team, each one's weakness being cancelled out by someone else's strength. But their personalities were as different as their skill sets, and the way Salem had a smartass comment to anything someone had to say, he wondered how they weren't constantly at each other's throats.
"Okay, we're at the drop." Abe announced in a whisper barely loud enough to be heard. He pulled a strange little device out of his backpack that looked like a big suction cup with clamps on the sides. Reaching carefully, hs long arms extended across the gap, and he locked one side of the clamps onto the thin lip where the pieces of the vent came together. He then pressed the suction cup onto the wall where it stuck firmly, before setting the clamps on the bottom to attach themselves. "I hope this thing is as quiet as you said it was, SE, because it's gonna have to cut the side."
"I tested it, it shouldn't be louder than eight decibels if the lubricant works properly."she responded.
"I have no idea what that means." he said, switching the device on.
"It mean it should be really quiet." Salem murmured. Over time, she has learned to speak basic nerd.
The device hummed a moment before the clamps began to jimmy back and forth very quickly. The edges of them were serrated and sharp to they would cling to surfaces better, but Ema had fiddled with them a bit so they could cut through something to find purchase if necessary. There was then a metallic hum and a clear liquid began to drip down the wall.
"Damn, it worked." whispered Salem.
Abe then reached out and hooked a propelling line to the contraption, allowing the carefully measured line to fall down the shaft. There was no sound of impact, meaning they had cut it to the right length. He hooked a carabiner onto his harness then onto the line.
"Alright, I'm gonna go. Leave about three feet between each person so no one's kicking anyone in the head." he instructed before jumping forward. His sneakers hit the opposite wall with almost no sound and he began quickly descending, Ema following after a moment.
"Yeah, I hope no one's expecting this Dick Grayson dead silent shit out of me." she grumbled, clipping her harness to the line before descending as well. Her boots with the wall with a soft thud, but it was the loudest noise any of them could hear.
Rex realized that this was the first time that he'd seen Salem completely out of her element and he idly wondered how it would affect her performance.
So far it had just been a lot of hushed complaints.
After a moment, Rex descended down the dark shaft too. His feet hit the wall with less sound than Salem's, unsurprisingly. He noticed that the girl was already several feet below him, her light weight allowing her to move faster while making less noise. He carefully followed down, unable to help but make comparisons to "falling down the rabbit hole".
"Stop!" Salem hissed, and Rex gripped to the cable supporting the four teens(something that didn't fail to unsettle him no matter how many times he was reassured it would not break) to stop his descent. He glanced down to see where Abe was prying a panel off the side of the shaft. It popped loose a few seconds later and he held onto it, lowering himself a few more feet.
"It's a big opening, so I'm gonna let you guys go through first so I can put the grate back." he called in a low whisper that barely carried up to Rex.
Ema hopped lower, carefully crawling into the opening and unhooking her harness. Salem followed a moment later, doing her best to not let any of the metal parts hit the metal walls around them.
Rex slid down the line, also swinging into the hole and detaching from the line. Abe pulled himself up from his lower perch, joining them with a bit more difficulty since the rope was completely slack. He left it hanging outside the vent as he put the cover back. They would either remove it when they left, or get caught and it wouldn't matter.
True to his word, the opening did lead to a larger chamber in the ventilation system. It had a few access panels on the low walls, presumably for maintenance.
"Watch your step. A bigger area means more give in the floor, and it could creak." the tall boy warned. "Stick to the sides."
The group followed behind him to another panel, of which he also pried free. This one, however, was simply left leaning against the wall by the opening.
"You would think for an air vent it wouldn't be as hot as it is." Salem grumbled, swiping the loose strands of her hair from her face where her bangs had begun to stick to her skin.
"Salem, for the love of god please be quiet." Abe hissed under his breath.
Rex could practically feel her irritation rolling off in waves, but the girl did fall silent.
They moved through a few more shafts before coming to another grate, a beige wall with burgundy trim being the only thing visible through it.
"Okay, this is by the first door." Abe whispered when they stopped. "Rex, I need you to put the cameras on a loop, but we're gonna have to move fast. There's a scan that runs every three minutes that will reset the loop. Pyra and Rex stand watch while Ema opens the doors. I'll get the next vent open and we'll go from there."
Once again, blue patterns spidered out from underneath the Latino's palms, pulsing blue for a moment. "Okay, I got it."
Abe popped the cover free, leaping out and landing without a sound. Ema came next, half lowered down by Salem. Then, the pyromaniac hopped down, her feet hitting the carpeted hall with a small noise. Rex followed, and they were all standing in the hallway.
"Pyra, I'm gonna hold you up so you can put the cover back on." said Abe, locking his fingers. Ema was already working on the door, hacking the facial recognition so Kateri's clearance card would work.
Salem stepped into the blond's palms, one hand on the wall as she was raised a good four feet into the air. She clicked the panel back into place with fast, practiced motions. Back on the ground, she held her modified gun in front of her, standing a few feet to Ema's left.
"I think I got it." the girl with the blue streak announced quietly. "I hope there's nothing on the other side of this door."
"There shouldn't be, it's a Saturday." Abe said quietly. "This part of the building shouldn't have anyone in it, just the bottom floor."
Ema swiped Kateri's key card and a moment later, it lit up green and the door slid open with a soft pneumatic hiss.
"C'mon, it's only open for a few seconds." Abe had already vanished before Rex and Salem turned around. They both ducked through the closing doors, where Abe was already holding the next vent cover.
"C'mon." he urged, but fingers already twined once again. He lifted up Ema, then Salem, both girls being too short to jump to the edge. He lifted an eyebrow at Rex "I assume you can get up there?"
Rex rolled his eyes, his face screaming the "duh" he didn't say aloud. He could almost reach the opening flat footed and was off the ground in a few seconds. Abe was there a moment later, pulling the grate back into place. The three scooted to the side of the already narrow vent to let the blond boy pass.
"Next stop there's another drop where we start moving underground. It's probably gonna get dark, too, so Pyra and SE, you're gonna need to keep a good lookout since you can see and Rex and I can't." he said.
"Wouldn't it make more sense if Sideeffects to I went first, then?" asked Salem. "We can see what's ahead of us, so it would be easier to lead everyone through."
"But neither of you know the network as well as I do, and if something springs, it'd be better if I triggered it than you." Abe reasoned. "Plus, if I get caught, I have a better chance of getting out because I'm fully human."
"But-"
He cut Salem off. "We don't have time to argue. This is the plan and we need to stick to it."
He turned and began to move before Salem could protest further. There was a bit of grumbling under her breath, but she did follow.
More awkward silence as they crawled through more vents. There was the occasional metallic ting as Salem managed to tap something against the sides, which would cause everyone to freeze for a moment. Then followed a whispered apology before continuing.
After a while, it all began to blur together for Rex. Propelling down another shaft, crawling through more vents, hacking more doors. It became a matter of careful repetition and quick response, follow instructions and move fast. Hack open the next door and get back in the vents before someone sees you.
It seemed almost too easy once they were at the last door.
"Okay, this one's gonna take a while." Abe said, sliding the last vent cover back into place. "Arrow's clearance card doesn't work here, so Ema's gonna have to do it all by hand."
Everyone knew this already, but the lanky boy said it anyways. It helped keep them grounded, keep their focus on the mission.
Ema knelt by the lock, keeping to the side of the face scanner. If it scanned her by accident, it would trigger the alarm and they would fail.
Rex and Salem stood barely within sight on either side of the tiny girl, keeping watch over the empty halls. In the event someone shows up, they were supposed to knock them out as quietly as possible and smack a benzodiazepines patch on their neck to induce short-term amnesia. The cameras and motion sensors had all been hacked, Rex having overridden the reset so there wasn't a three minute time restraint.
The only thing left was a tense several minutes of Ema hacking open the last door. This door was different from the others, even it it's appearence. It has three layers to it that had to open before someone could get inside, and it took a special access card, thumbprint, retina, facial scanners and a weight sensor to get in. At least five minutes of work for the genius girl.
Abe had vanished entirely, but they knew he was close by. He was no longer needed until Rex swapped the drives and they were to leave, so he was waiting back near the duct out of sight.
The Latino glanced back where there was a mechanical whine as one part of the door slid open, revealing a much less pleasant doorway. This one looked to be solid metal, no attempts having been made at all to hide the reinforced frame or the security mechanisms built into the door. He supposed that if you managed to get the first one open, it wouldn't matter anymore. A few seconds later, it also slid open. The last door was actually clear, with thin lines of circuits running through it. Rex caught a glimpse of a few blinking rows of backup panels.
Then, it too opened.
"You're up, Rex." Ema whispered, stepping back.
He back walked to her, eyeing the doorway. Now seeing the room in full, it was nothing more than rows upon rows of computers, backup drives and control modules. There were a few doors on the side walls, supposedly leading to more labs.
"You're gonna have to swing through, because of the weight sensor." The girl with the blue streaks instructed. "It extends six feet forward and eight feet wide, so you'll need to jump it."
Rex nodded, backing up a couple steps. Running forward, he leapt up at the door frame, latching onto the small lip with as tight a grip as he could manage, throwing his weight forward as hard as he could. His feet hit the floor with more force than he would have liked, and he immediately froze. No alarms, no sirens, no lasers in his face.
"You're good, go!" he heard the tiny blond girl hiss.
Moving quickly, he circled the room, nearly missing the safe. It was tucked neatly between two tower panels, looking for all the world like a breaker box, but he noticed the tiny scanner mounted on the side.
Approaching it, he wasted no time, pulling off one glove and placing his palm on the door. He closed his eyes, familiar blue lines racing out from under his hands in the blue maze.
The device hummed under his touch almost as if it were alive. It was rare that Rex would encounter technology as complex as this. What could they possibly be doing that would warrant such security? Human experimentation was far more common that Rex wanted to admit, Salem and Ema perfect examples. Taking people no one would notice or miss and doing unspeakable things to them. He wouldn't be surprised if at least one of them had PTSD as a result of it and had learned to hide it.
The advanced nature of the device resisted his nanites, fighting to prevent them from recalibrating the device. He could feel strange hybrid components within the finer tuned mechanics of it, the DNA scanner having components that were borderline alien. They reminded him of the internal system from ZAG-RS, but not quite as sophisticated.
He pushed his nanites at the device, trying to force what the micro machines could not coax, and after what felt like forever, the vault whirred and clicked, the door popping open.
Withdrawing his hand, Rex blinked back slightly fuzzy vision, the hacking having drained him considerably more than he would have expected. He opened the door of the safe, glancing inside.
It was yet smaller than the outside suggested, looking relatively unimpressive for all the trouble they'd gone through. Three small drives tucked neatly into the metal frame against a white polymer casing. Rex reached out and deactivated the security that would sent an alert anytime they were disconnected.
"Here goes nothing." he whispered, popping one out of the narrow slot. His heart skipped a beat as the silence stretched on. The next two were then yanked out and all but thrown into his backpack. He quickly slotted in the decoy drives before shutting the safe and making sure the system would accept the mostly-blank drives.
He jogged out of the room, really not wanting to be in there any longer than absolutely necessary and he got the feeling they were testing their luck as is. So far, the mission had run with little issue, and that alone made Rex uneasy. The halls had been dead quiet and no alarm of any sort had been set off with all the hacking they were doing.
Something didn't sit right with him.
"You got them?" Ema asked when he reappeared through the doorway. The girl hadn't moved much from her position when he first entered.
"Yeah, all three. Go, I'll shut the door." he told her, palm already over the control box in careful avoidance of the thumbprint scanner.
Ema nodded. "Watch the lens, if it scans you, we're probably screwed."
She did not wait to see if he replied, instead turning to the now open vent. A pale arm appeared through it, hauling the tiny girl through.
"Hurry!" hissed Salem, still keeping watch, though she backed closer to the vent shaft as well.
Blue veins pulsed and the doors began to move back into place. The last door had yet to fully shut before Rex spun away from it and dashed for the vent. He saw immediately that Salem was just barely too short to reach it, and since Ema was already up, Abe could not reach her.
"Great." he mumbled, stooping down and latching onto her waist. Her eyes widened in shock at this before she realized what he was doing and stilled her squirming. He lifted up her body, slightly surprised by just how light she was, and she grabbed onto the edge of the opening. The weight vanished from his arms as she pulled herself the rest of the way up, disappearing in seconds.
He then grabbed it himself, yanking himself through and pushing the grate back into place.
"Everyone up?" Abe's voice floated through the darkened shaft.
A low murmur of confirmation from everyone whispered back, and they were on the move once again.
And done! Next chapter is the cluster fuck of Kateri's meeting with...someone. It's kinda short, but I was sick of dragging it out, but it picks back up in 16.
I'll see you guys Monday!