By the time Magnus and Tesla had snuck back to the entrance way Reitler and Wagner-Jauregg had gone. The office door was closed, the lights off inside. Presumably the two scientists had headed further into the interior, but they had no idea how many rooms, laboratories, or access routes there were. Not to mention security guards. It seemed prudent to slip across the all-too-exposed walkway and into the office, see if there were any schematics or plans.
Inside the office was surprisingly comfortable, a single desk with a leather chair behind it, a clock on the middle shelf of the book case covering one wall. Papers were filed neatly into trays, two filing cabinets to the right, and a basket of large, rolled-up schematics. Nikola started pulling them out in the half-light. The blinds were shut but there was just enough to read by, to see the drawings for a device big enough to fill the entirety of this cavern.
Helen was rifling through the papers in the trays – bills, security reports, stage plans… she flicked through the latter. Stage 5. Extended Testing.
"Helen?" Nikola whispered, getting her attention, he'd found a map of the layout – the interweaving caverns.
As they suspected, beneath them on the ground level of the cavern was the abnormal containment, and a slightly smaller cavern just off of it marked 'Chemical Production'.
"They are farming them," she whispered, flicking through the file in her hand to see what they were doing, "producing the same compound they injected into us… Nikola-"
She shoved the page beneath his gaze – they'd been delivering the compound to Vienna under the guise of delivery supplies for the Dorotheergasse facility… for months – emptying it into the water supply, contaminating pumps, wells, as well as mains water. If they hadn't been in Vienna for so long they might not have reacted to the dose they'd been given back at the Hotel Kaiserin. Which meant Reitler, at least, knew they had already been exposed to the drug and was willing to risk whatever side-effects occurred from double exposure, even death.
"The bastard," Helen hissed.
"And not just Vienna-" he pointed out at the bottom of the page – Baden was also contaminated.
"They're testing it here first… then Vienna…"
"And then… the world." Nikola sighed, his eyes drifting over the other papers she'd disturbed, a familiar logo peeking out from the bills making his brow narrow as he plucked it out. He held it up to Helen, pinched between his fingers, "Well, what do you know?"
She picked it up, tilting it to get more light. It was from the University. A statement of their generous, anonymous, beneficence towards the Department of Philological and Cultural Studies no less. So they had been hoping to get some answers out of the Spear, out of the research which, having underestimated Hauler's competitiveness, their pet archaeologist had been entirely cut out of.
She put the paper to one side, pulling up the plan of the building and studying what Nikola had already committed to memory – the service tunnel that went out into the hill-side, the security staff room, the huge cavern which housed the industrial scale dispersal mechanism.
"Let's split up," she suggested, whispering earnestly, "did you find out how to shut it down?"
He nodded, pointing to the other drawing and the weakest point.
"Good," she looked to him, battle-mask ready, that cold hard determination, tinged by just the smallest uncertainty – the adrenaline which would see her through the fear. "I'll get Freud, free the Tatzelwurms and destroy the chemical production …"
"And I'll stop them releasing the aerosol on the unsuspecting citizens of Baden – right."
"Wait," she stopped him making a move, looking around for something flammable, "Get as many of the schematics as possible in the bin…"
His face fell as she grabbed an oil lamp and he realised what she was going to do. "Shouldn't we… at least take their notes? Just in case?"
She made a disbelieving face, the entirety of her argument in a stare: in case of what, that look said, your own curiosity? This is too dangerous to keep and you know it.
"Fine," he sighed, petulantly dropping what he had into the bin, "and when they see smoke and raise the alarm?"
"Counting on it," she spilled oil over the papers, searching the draws for a pack of matches. "We're moving too fast."
And Bilge wouldn't be giving them a distraction for another… twenty minutes. Besides which they couldn't be sure he wouldn't get caught, or change his mind.
She lit a match, dropping it into the pile and making sure it grew into a nice little desk-side pyre. The flames licked hungrily. They might die down in the safety of the waste paper receptacle, but odds were they would devour the room in ten minutes flat – they couldn't stand around and watch. The smell hit Nikola with an unexpected memory – his own laboratory, still burning, his work going up in flames on 5th Avenue. He was fixed, for a moment, to the spot, biting the wave of nostalgia down with a violent frown, when his eyes caught the notes on the file she'd left open upon the desk.
Helen had her gun out, almost out of the door before she realised he wasn't following, and when she turned he'd already caught back up. Looking more like his usual obnoxious self, gunning to run into trouble head-first, she didn't have time to be suspicious. They had a job to do.
0 0
Retracing their steps Magnus and Tesla parted ways, and she headed back to the elevators. The cage clattered against its metal runners like a train, taking her a floor down with a rather large bump as she threw on the break. Beyond the cage door the hallway was as dark and roughly-hewn as upstairs, heading in the same general direction, with a slightly dimmer light at the end. Helen flexed her fingers around her gun, every sense heightened, aware of her surroundings so that she could hear the drip of condensation from the walls.
The scuffling sound they'd heard earlier grew louder, the clink of bars and claws, the occasional purr, the occasional hiss. The creatures had been rattled by the presence of the guards. Helen wasn't entirely sure she wouldn't bump straight into them on their way back. She hoped to hear the clunk of their boots, but… nothing. As she edged tentatively towards the low-lit hall, and the steel cylinders propping up the office came into view, she kept alert.
There were rows of cages, stacked to form ailes, with the half-serpent, half-feline forms of the Tatzelwurms curled up in about forty per cent of them. Larger cages were stacked beneath smaller ones – the former apparently home to new mothers and their eggs.
"We'll bring you something at dinner time Herr Freud," one of the guards sneered, somewhere down one of the interior stacks.
The Doctor didn't respond, which meant she didn't have long before they'd be coming this way. Helen rounded the stacks to the other side of the room as quietly and steadily as possible so as not to scuff the ground or rouse the Tatzelwurms. She kept flicking her eyes up to the office building, trying to see whether the fire had taken, whether it was starting to show.
Sure enough the two guards took the fastest route back to the elevators, chatting amongst themselves about their shift having been unexpectedly extended tonight, and being glad for the extra pay. As soon as they had disappeared from view she ran to Freud's cage.
He looked up only slowly, expecting that some lab assistant might have seen the kerfuffle, but never dreaming it might be someone willing to help him escape. His eyebrows instantly shot to his forehead at the sight of Dr Helena Max, and there was a modicum of terror when he saw the gun at her side beneath the stern expression.
"Dr Freud," she greeted in a wintry tone.
"Dr… Max," he gasped, face falling as he realised he'd find no sympathy from a woman he had so wronged, "I am… I am sorry," he looked down to the floor, "sorry to have… so sorry."
"The question is, Freud, whether you're only sorry now that you've been thrown in a cage alongside the very abnormals you were exploiting?"
He looked at her then with a renewed curiosity. Abnormals? Who was she? He'd thought, perhaps, the government. Then later, Rudolf had said something which made him think… foreign government, and now… she seemed to know more about what they were doing than even an excellent spy might've discerned. A level of belief in the impossible he wouldn't have expected amongst those ranks. He watched her warily as she bent down to his level, inspecting the paltry padlock and looking at him as if to say: The ball's in your court. What do you chose?
"Wagner-Jauregg must be stopped Doctor…" he stopped himself saying Max – it was almost certainly not her real name, "he is mad. I never wanted this to be some kind of, of weapon, to be used against the unsuspecting." He winced at the look she gave him, "Well, I mean, I'm sorry for the other day I… we… Rudolf and I were quite sure you were about to turn us in. We never meant any harm…" the distant expression hinted that perhaps, thinking about it, that's what Reitler, at least, had intended. "The chemicals wear off… that's the beauty of it."
He looked very much like a man whose dreams were unravelling, whose plans had been turned and twisted into something evil and tainted. It appalled him. Like a modern day Frankenstein.
"I'll make you a deal Freud," she whispered closely, detecting the clink of the guards' footsteps up above them as they crossed the grated floor, "Do you know how the dispersal mechanism works?"
"No," he shook his head instantly, keeping his voice low, "I only discovered it yesterday when I arrived, and it was Rudolf who designed the smaller one."
"And the keys to these cages?"
"Kept on the far wall," he pointed to their left, "the corner on the right. Except this one – they took it with them."
"Very well then, I'll get you out of here, if you get all these Tatzelwurms out of here."
"Out… of the cages?"
"Of the entire complex Freud."
He considered her, wondering what she was up to, wondering why her eyes kept drifting distractedly up, in the direction of their office.
"Do we have a deal?"
He didn't exactly have a lot of options right now… still, he couldn't not ask, pulling himself up against the bars to look her in the eye, "Who are you?"
She smiled a charming half smile that was far too cunning, and yet far too kind not to be trusted. She didn't answer.
"Yes," he relented. "I will get them out through the service tunnel."
She'd seen it on the map, a secret access point that exited into the woods. It was on the upper level.
"If I come back this way and these creatures have not been freed Dr Freud…"
He felt the barest shiver down his back, but he knew he deserved it. He had treated this woman very badly, and underestimated her to boot – he had no intention of pitting himself against her again. He nodded, watching her holster the gun to dig out a hairpin and pick the lock on his cage.
"You're a woman of many talents Doctor…" he hinted, trying to get something out of her – a name at least.
"We haven't much time," she insisted, letting the padlock spring open with a jolt and reclaiming her weapon, a lock of hair flying away now from the front of her face which she blatantly ignored. Scanning the room in case they were about to be discovered, she gave him the look of a commanding officer – no buts, no ifs, no maybes, only orders – and then an unexpected smile appeared. "Things are going to get rather explosive I'm afraid."
It wasn't exactly reassuring.
After ensuring Freud really did intend to adhere to his side of the bargain, Helen broke into the Chemical Production laboratory, where they'd been producing the formula. There wasn't any kind of production line – every Tatzelwurm had been farmed individually, the secretion stored, and then mixed batch by batch using standard lab equipment. They must have had people on it, day in, day out. So where the bloody hell were they all? Had they cleared them out because of their plans? She released a Tatzelwurm that had been prepped for farming and left the lab as it was – the caves probably wouldn't survive what was coming anyway, no need to rub the ensuing destruction in Freud's face. Besides, she was more interested in the door on the opposite side of the room.
Breaking the lock, the door opened into the half-light of another corridor, ending in another, unlocked, door. She could hear a torrent of water, sloshing through the rocks like a waterfall, as she approached. The natural springs channelled off-route to carry the chemicals into the water system. In a town devoted to the healing waters – if this was going to work anywhere, it would be here.
Sure enough, behind the iron door was a huge open pipe crossing from wall to wall, water sloshing through it. A simple pumping mechanism, loaded with the base compound, was continuously feeding the chemical into the water – perhaps the guards had topped it up not so long ago, because the device seemed almost full. The good news was that an electronic pump like this was not going to need a gunshot or a fire to destroy it.
Finding the hatch to maintain the machine parts she pried it open, grabbing the hose and pulling it out from the mains pipe. Dragging the still-dripping liquid, spraying it across the room, Magnus turned it against itself, shoving the fireman-style nozzle directly into the belly of the machine, until the metal crunched against fast-moving pistons.
She ran, flying round the door as the pressure increased, as the clockwork sching and click of its moving parts were drowned in a gurgle of the slightly viscous fluid, gushing in. It gave out a moan, like a sinking ship creaking, just as she put the iron door between her and it – then it stilled. The calm before the storm, that moment when those fated to die would have screamed out for their lives across a too-silent sea: then… BOOM.
Helen could feel the smack of the casing, twisted by the explosion, hurtling into the door at her back. The ping of cogs and gears as they flew out into the walls. The rush of liquid released, flooding the floor, until it had nowhere else to go. She waited a moment, both hands rounding her gun as if to make sure she had all her fingers. Give it a moment, she reminded herself, wary of any aftershocks. Just a moment.
Every part of her desperately wanted to leg it, to grab Freud by the ear and tell him to go, to find Nikola and end this – but she had to be certain. They couldn't leave this to chance. Her heart racing, she thought for one horrible moment that she could hear the guards approaching… but it was a phantom groan from the machine in the room behind her. Tense, she opened the door. The mechanism had settled into a heap of parts, completely gutted, the water still gushing obliviously through the same open pipe... they wouldn't be pumping anything for a while. That was for sure.
Author's Note: Sabotaaaage! :) but how's Nikola faring?
Sparky – lol, I know right? Aragorn can't be evil, it's just wrong
AConstanceC – you are awesome. :) Thank you for your squeals.
Also a shout-out to the admin at The Five Facebook group (whose name or pseudonym I cannot be sure of) and anyone reading this fic through that! If you haven't gone and liked The Five on facebook, what's wrong with you? Go forth and post more awesome Five-related stuff!
