Deus Ex: The Conspiracy
Authors Note: I truly, truly apologize for the extended delay. I'll try not to let it happen again.
Chapter Thirty Seven: The Submarine Base
JC and Vixen looked down upon the military bot as it rumbled along its pre-programmed path, oblivious to the black helicopter gliding away from the base. Jock had left them atop a large maintenance plateau, most likely used for choppers headed to the base. From here, they had a perfect view of the entire base.
Or at least the parts of it that were above the water. It was built like a series of interlocking compartments, not smooth or seamless. It resembled many boxes stacked atop other boxes, with some shafts connecting them occasionally. On the water were two squat buildings, a narrow catwalk connecting them.
On almost every flat surface of the base, there was a sniper. Bob Page seemed to have it all figured out.
A theory I mean to test...JC thought.
Vixen continued to stare at the Bravo Three below them. JC looked over to the west, near the entrance to the base, and saw another robot lumbering around with a complement of troops. There was a shack behind them, most likely used for storage. Their target was getting to the entrance, a vertical shaft leading up to the rest of the base.
"Any ideas?" He asked of her.
She examined the situation again, and frowned, "Do we have the firepower to take those things out?"
JC checked his pockets for his LAM cache, took out the carrying unit they were kept in, and looking inside. Only one of the high powered grenades was left.
"Not enough. Maybe it'll be enough to take out one...but..."
Vixen took out a few EMP grenades, and threw it them up and down, juggling them perfectly.
"I'm pretty good with these." She said simply.
JC remembered the car chase back in Hells Kitchen...Yes, she was good. He shuddered slightly, remembering that he couldn't trust her within an inch of his life.
"You're sure there's no other way?"
"No. There's another way." She gestured to the water, swirling and crashing against the concrete shore of the base.
"We swim in?" JC asked.
"I'm willing to bet we can find a way in." She shrugged.
He looked back to the rest of the base. Yes...it would be easier. But there was a snag in her plan, though. The snipers, or even worse, the bots would probably see them as they sprinted to the water. Then it would be a simple matter of raising the alarm, and they would lose their chance to commendeer a submarine. Savage had warned him before hand that this was the same way Tiffany was captured...But his daughter didn't have augmentations.
He explained his concerns to V, and she nodded, accepting them, "It's a chance we'll have to take, though, if we wanna be stealthy."
"So there's a chance we can compromise ourselves no matter what we do..." JC said, sighing.
"Essentially, yes."
JC thought about it...Diving would be far more subtle, and trying to take out the bots would undoubtfully alert them to the rest of the base. He decided on the underwater plan.
"We'll go with your idea." JC said, nodding.
"Ok, but first we need to actually get to the water without being spotted." Vixen said.
"I can take care of it." JC activated his speed enhancement, and turned to his companion, "Hold on to me."
She slung her arms around him, and held on tight. It felt...
JC banished the thought, hunched his legs, and leapt forth. They vaulted silently into the air, and slowly came back down towards the water. JC felt an odd sensation of vertigo as the water quickly leaped up at him, and finally they hit. The force of the impact stung JC for a moment, and they both sank deeper for a moment, Vixen releasing her hold on him.
When they reoriented themselves, they swam up to each other, and surfaced, looking up at the buildings.
"Keep moving, in case they spotted us." JC said, breathing in.
They danced around the surface for a minute, looking around at the facility. No one seemed to had noticed them, as evidenced by the lack of gunshots ringing out into the night. JC held up a wagging finger, and they both dived back underwater. JC looked about the swirling blue deep, searching for a viable entry point. Lights from windows deep underwater winked up at him, from what he guessed to be a laboratory.
Eventually Vixen tapped his shoulder, and pointed to something the distance. A section of the leftmost building was underwater, and light seemed to pour out from the bottom. A clear indication of a way in. She led the way, beginning to swim toward it. She swam with practiced skill, while JC lagged behind. He hadn't swam in a few days, coupled with the fact that the times he had, usually ended up with something in the water trying to kill him. The karkian bursting out from car wreck in Hong Kong was still fresh in his mind. He found himself twisting around, searching the water for transgenics.
What he did find, in the distance were several divers, armed with spear guns. His adrenalline flared up, tensing himself for evasive action, but ordered himself to relax. The divers were moving casually, their spear guns held loosely. He turned back to warn V, and found her going back up for air. He followed, suddenly registering the sudden stab of pain in his lungs. He hurried up, and was nearly carried up into the air as he surfaced by his pure momentum alone.
"Di-...vers behind us." He gasped.
V dunked her head in, and looked about. She surfaced, "They're not alert."
"I know, just be on the look out."
"Roger."
They dived back in, and continued swimming, taking occasional looks back. Their potential assailants seemed to be making no move to pursue them. Eventually, the divers disappeared from sight, and the entrance was that much closer. They relaxed.
A spear zoomed through the water, cutting right through JC's trench coat, and missing V by a hair. They both whirled around, and saw nothing. JC looked down, and his eyes dialated. The divers had been slowly making their way up to hit them at their bellies. JC instinctively reached for his gun before remembering that it could never work underwater.
They had nothing to fight the divers with.
Jock touched down silently on Vandenbergs rooftop, and Savage was already waiting, grinning his head off. Jock could barely surpress his own as his daughter ran up to him and wrapped herself around the scientist.
"Where's Sandra?" Gilbert asked. It looked like he had been thinking he would see his own daughter on the roof as well.
"One of Savage's aides'll bring you to her." Jock told him.
Gilbert jumped out of the chopper as well, and looked around feebly. Jock slowly came out after him, and found himself searching the skies for Ava. He couldn't see her...
The courtyard outside the base was already being cleaned up, trucks towing away pieces of wreckage...and bodies. He sighed silently, and found himself wishing for a drink. He hadn't had one in god knew long...He went up to Savage after he had sent Gilbert and Tiffany down the stairs.
"What's going one with JC?" He asked.
Savage shrugged, "They took an underwater route into the base, I don't know beyond that."
Jock nodded, and they both went down into the base.
"What about the vaccine?" Jock asked.
"Everett's sent us the scheamatic, all we need to do is wait for JC and V to find the containment unit," He sighed, "Pray for them, it's gonna be difficult down there in the lab."
They continued on down.
JC dashed to the right, a movement made sluggish by the water, and narrowly dodged another spear. After doing this, he lunged forward and grabbed the nearest diver just as another spear tore through the water. The spear impaled the diver through the chest, and blood flooded JC's vision temporarilly.
Meanwhile, Vixen darted forward and wrenched a spear out of a nearby divers hands. She flicked the sharp end up forcibly, and slashed her adversaries neck. She turned, and gutted another with a similar move.
JC wadded to the left as two of the divers slashed forward, blinded by the fog-like blood. He whipped out the DTS, and watched as the blade sprang forth, litterally eating away at the water as more came in to take its place. He lunged forward and flatlined both divers by the waist.
Only a few more divers remained, and they enmassed' JC and Vixen together. They both stabbed and slashed with their weapons until bodies filled the water. The remaining two enemies began to flee, but didn't get far before JC was upon them.
After, the two agents regrouped at the surface. They crashed up to the water line, breathing heavily.
"You alright?" JC asked.
"I'm fine, is that all of them?"
"I think so."
They nodded to each other and kept on swimming toward the facility, leaving the body infested water behind. JC sighed hollowly, slightly shaken by how close they had gotten to being killed. Admittedly he and Vixen had taken them all out rather easily, but they had almost been killed without even knowing it.
V disappeared under the facility, and soon JC followed her up into the de-pressurization chamber. It was a small bleak room, with several diving suits laying around. Two hatches lay at either side of the room, one toward the submarine bay, and another to the rest of the facility.
He got up out of the water, and eyed the diving suits. V smiled slightly, "Think they're non-gender specific?"
"I'm not sure they'd fit me..." JC said.
"Let's try it out."
She moved forward, and unceromoniously climbed out of her jumpsuit. JC grimaced slightly, and turned away, his usually pale face now red. He heard V laugh behind him.
"I didn't expect you to show humilty." He heard her slipping on the diving suit,"You don't seem like the type."
"I don't seem like a lot of things, nowadays." He said, stripping out of his jumpsuit and trench coat. The recent personality changes he'd gone through in just under a week were anything but healthy. In a way, though, he felt more perceptive now. Alive.
He bent down, and picked up the diving suit. It didn't look like it'd fit, but MJ-12's uniforms had surprised him in the past. He got into it, and found that it was nearly perfect. Maybe it had some sort of size detector...
He turned back and found Vixen leaning against the wall, her suit tucked against her arms. JC found a duffel bag nearby, and they slipped their clothes into it. A few seconds later, two casual suited men walked in from the direction of the labs, and began to get dressed at nearby lockers. JC and V quickly exited, recieving strange looks from the two men.
"You good to go?"
"Sure am." JC said. They got into an elevator, and V punched a button. The platform descended, and JC felt his ears pop as they went well below sea-level. They got out, and came into a hall filled with beeping computer terminals and scientists moving to and fro. A drone gun was set up on the ceiling, its turret moving slowly back and forth.
"Do you have an estimate on the casaulty rate yet?" said a scientist to one of his colleagues as they went by.
"No, but I think it's safe to assume they all died."
"We need to send a team down there soon!"
"Walton Simons will be along shortly, he's getting his team ready in section a-2."
"I wasn't aware he was on the base."
"Well, you are now." Said the other scientist, turning back to her work.
"Shit..." JC mumbled softly. Vixen concurred with a nod.
They continued their walk through the lab, passing scientists and several MJ-12 guards. The science team all wore tired, worn faces, like they were being worked over-time. It wasn't a bad assumption. JC motioned to V, and they both entered a small closed off office, previously locked. He led her over to the darkest part of the office, and turned to her.
"What do you know about what's happened?" He asked.
"A disaster, of some sort..." V shrugged.
"Yes, but what kind?"
"Something at the ocean lab. An outbreak, I guess." She explained.
"I want to know more than that..." JC sighed.
"I bet we can hack into their database...see what happened." She suggested.
An obvious, albeit dangerous solution. JC mentally smacked himself for not thinking of it sooner. "Not a bad idea." He turned to the softly glowing three monitor computer on the desk. "I bet I can get it from here."
"I'll guard the door." V said, moving over to it.
JC walked silently to the computer, and attached the ice-breaker Shannon had provided him. The computer flared to life, showing a login screen, and then a darker version with green lines running up and down, the words "Ice Breaker" in conveinantly blue letters traveled about the screen along with the green lines. Soon the desktop appeared. JC checked the name he was logged onto.
JMarkis, security chief.
JC looked around the room, and suddenly noticed an antique shotgun hung onto the wall. He smirked, and went back to the computer. The diver suit was making it difficult to hit keys correctly, so it took him several tries to get into a folder marked "Recent Security Issues."
a-1Ali Markubi goes AWOL.
a-2Transmissions from the Ocean Lab cease
There were more, but JC instantly clicked on that.
James Markis, Security Advisor, November 22, 2052.
Earlier today all transmission from Lab O-S 54(Or simply, the Ocean Lab) ceased completely. Reason unknown, the eggheads in communications are attempting to figure out what's wrong. After this week, something tells me it can't be good.
End of Log.
JC frowned, and went back into the folders, and hit a search engine button. He typed in "ocean lab", narrowed the search down to most recent files, and punched the enter key.
The following results have been found...
a-18 Ocean lab debrief team. Lost contact.
a-14 Ocean lab, cause for disturbence found.
a-5 Ocean lab, experiments compromised.
a-2 Transmissions from the Oceab Lab cease.
JC opened a-18.
James Markis, Security Advisor, November 24, 2052.
Christ, I haven't had to go through this many files in my two years on this base. Anyway, it appears the briefing team didn't come back as planned. My guess is that our, erm, pets had a little fun with them down there. Walton Simons himself is coming to this base later to investigate the lab personally. That, IMO, will be the end to that.
End of Log.
JC leaned back into the chair, thinking. Little pets could only mean one thing: A transgenic outbreak.
"Interesting discovery." Savage said over the info-link. Apparently the same conclusion had been reached in his own mind.
"This is gonna be difficult, Gary." JC replied.
JC checked out the rest of the files, and found that they all pointed to the same thing. A transgenic outbreak at the lab. Wonderful.
He let Vixen take a look, and went to guarding the door. After having gone against them, JC couldn't help but wonder what purpose the transgenics served for MJ-12. Bio-weapons? It made little sense. He would have liked to have more time to really study their purpose, but they simply couldn't at the moment. Strange that after fighting them so long, and he still knew incredibly little about his enemies motives.
"We gotta get moving." He said.
"I'm with you there, c'mon." V exited out of the computer, and they stepped through the door.
And right into a MJ-12 uniformed man.
He stared at them for a good moment, before saying, "What were you doing in my office?"
"Took a wrong turn." JC lied.
"Into a locked office!" Markis exclaimed.
"It was unlocked." V sighed.
"Wh-what do you mean?" James Markis spluttered. "No," he then said, fumbling with a radio, "Don't answer that. It may be nothing, but I'm calling security. Don't you move."
JC looked at V. She sighed, and nodded, and together they wrenched the radio out of the mans grasp, and tossed him inside the office. Ignoring muffled cries, V locked the door.
"C'mon." She said, running down the corridor. They brushed past two soldiers, and a scientist in their haste to get away from the office, the duffel bag accidentally knocking over a chair.
"We're so going to get caught." V whimpered.
"No, we won't." JC advised.
They come upon a security checkpoint marked "Submarine bay." It was fully decked out with a scanner, metal detector, and two drone guns.
"Ok," JC rectified, "Maybe we will."
They approached the checkpoint uneasily, and the scanner barked out in a mechanical voice, "NAME AND REGISTRATION CARD."
"Er." JC had enough time to say before the turrets swiveled to face them, and opened fire.
As the two "divers" came over to the security check-point, Walton Simons felt a slight giddy sensation when the X-ray scanning finished its report. They matched Erica Dalton and Eric Denton perfectly.
He knew it was useless, but as he grabbed his gun, and a handful of pumped up guards, he set the turrets on the setting of "Shoot to Kill."
JC and V dived to the side as the turrets let loose with a hail of bullets. They took cover behind maintenance cubey, both of them stripped out of their diving wear, and hurriedly slipped on their protective jumpsuits. JC finished putting on his trench-coat, and tossed an EMP grenade at the checkpoint. It detonated, and several nearby computers sparked and detonated in unison. The turrets began to swivel around crazily, shooting things at random. Nearby scientists ducked for cover.
The two agents were already past the checkpoint, keeping their machine guns trained on the hall they had just came through.
"Great plan." Vixen muttered.
"Shut it." JC retorted, looking down the hall they were currently walking through. Several scientists stood waiting. He turned to them uneasily.
"Denton, right?" One of them, a female, asked.
"That's me." He motioned for V to cover the hall, and he turned to talk with them.
"I've been in contact with Savage," She said, stepping forward, "If you want to use the subs, you'll need to open the bay doors using a nearby terminal. Use the login "tech", password, 'Sharkman.'"
Vixen fired her weapon twice. "Company!" She cried.
JC rushed over, and peered over the corner. Two MJ-12 soldiers were all the way down the hallway, taking shots at them. JC returned fire, and watched them dash for cover. He and V turned and ran down the hall.
"Thanks!" JC called back to the scientists.
They came into another small laboratory. This one looked more like a processing area than a computer storage, like the one they had came from. JC recognized a canister of Ambrosia among the specimens. They barely had time to examine anything, however, as two guards were in the room. The two agents took cover, and waited as the soldiers sprayed the room with bullets.
"They're gonna box us in." JC said.
"Well, come on then." V replied. In spite of the bullets, they both got up and manuvaured to the two guards like they were almost swimming through the room. JC round house kicked the one near him, and double tapped his head when he was on the ground. V kneed her target in the gut, and spun to the side to avoid a desperate counter attack, then she smashed him in the back of the neck with her elbow. He fell to the ground.
They wasted no time as the soldiers from before, this time with the addition of five more assailants, appeared at the entrance. They rushed down a set of stairs, and came into the submarine bay. A technician looked at them curiously, and backed off when he realized that they were probably the source of the recent trouble. The submarine bay housed only two mini-subs, and one of them was currently under maintenance. The bay doors were closed, but this was quickly fixed by JC using the terminal, ignoring protests from the technician.
Several guards appeared at the door, and rained fire down upon the sub bay indiscriminately. The technician was riddled with bullets, and he fell backwards into the water. JC and Vixen strafed under the catwalk the soldiers were standing on, and fired up into them. Their opponents jerked and fell to the ground, blood cascading downwards from the catwalk.
When they had cleared the rest of the opposition, JC leaned over the water, and helped the technician back up. His lower body was completely bloody, and he looked down at it sorrowfully.
"You-you're going to hear from my law-lawyer about this." He coughed.
JC rolled his eyes and dressed the wound, using two medkits on the man. He propped him onto the wall, and looked back as V climbed into the sub.
"Come on!" She yelled.
JC ran over to the submarine, and attempted to get on. But something blocked his way. Like an invisible wall.
He had just enough time to process this before something punched him hard in the stomach. He doubled over, and then that something upper cutted him, and he fell back onto the concrete.
Walton Simons appeared on the submarine, holding an assault shotgun. He aimed the weapon down, and fired just as JC activated ballistic protection. The rounds hit him square in the chest, and he screamed in pain, but was otherwise undamaged. He rolled to the side to avoid another blast, and leapt back onto the submarine. Walton slashed the rifle down like a club, which JC deftly avoided, and he kicked his nano-augmented predecesor in the chest. Walton shrugged it off and attempted to aim the weapon at JC again. He was too slow, as JC headbutted him, bloodying his forehead. Walton staggered but held strong, and he slammed into the younger agent.
JC fell back onto the polished submarine surface, and he slipped into the water. He re-oriented himsef, and swam underneath the min-sub as Walton emptied several more rounds into the water. Above, JC heard V attempting to get out the sub, calling his name. With a good bit of momentum, JC propeled himself out of the water, and got back onto the concrete surrounding the bay. Walton was already there, and he fired relentlessly. JC activated his speed aug, and he jumped back onto the sub, avoiding the blasts. Walton's muscles suddenly bulged. It was combat strength.
He lunged at JC, quite eager to rip the younger agent apart, but JC quickly dodged, and he armed an EMP grenade. It detonated a short two seconds later, and both of their augmentations winked away. Walton hesitated, taken aback by this strategy. JC took advantage, and punched him in the face. Walton drew back, staggering, and JC finished the small altercation by kicking him again. Walton sailed backwards, and smashed into the catwalk. Blood splashed into the water.
"You know, I've noticed something." JC said, taking out his pistol as Walton got up.
"Wh...at." Walton growled.
"You're vastly overrated."
And JC shot him in the chest. Walton took one more step before collapsing. JC aimed his gun again, to finish him, but saw that he had no ammo left. He hoped to god that the bastard was dead. He climbed into the mini-sub, and closed the hatch after him.
"What happened!" Vixen asked angrilly.
"Nothing, trust me." JC smiled, and took the pilots seat. The mini-sub glided smoothly out of the bay, ignoring Waltons stirring form.
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