Chapter 8
Hyperion Area S501
Artemis tried to ignore the irregular pounding coming from the creature and made her way back to the security cage, where the severed arm still was tangled in the links. After pushing through, she found herself faced with another door, again without a key card reader. That was the door she needed to go through, the faint blood trail tracking under it confirmed it, but it seemed sealed from both sides, making her wonder what was being kept in that room, and more so, how to get in.
She held her light aloft and checked behind the first door to find another door set in the wall, which must have led to the security room. Bracing the light, she crouched down to examine it and found both an old fashioned key slot as well as a key card reader sitting darkly off to the side.
Sighing she pushed the door behind her closed and pulled her ECHO out.
"Right" She called "Found a door, so how do I bypass a security system."
"Was that gunfire I was hearing? Why weren't you responding? Are you all right?"
"Sorry, I'm fine, I'll explain when I see you, but to do that I need to open a few doors."
"Right, describe it to me."
Artemis did and Gaige swore "That's not gonna be easy. Is there any other way around?"
"No, it looks like I need to get in this room to unlock the door to the room in front of us."
"Crap. Well, if it needs to be done, let's do this."
She tried her best to follow the instructions that the other girl fed her. What would have taken Gaige a minute or two, took Artemis over ten, but in the end the lock gave and the door clunked.
She stood and stretched, before shoving the door and stepping in.
The room was small to the point of being cramped. The full desk took up the entire front wall below the glass. A single swivel chair was knocked over and had spun and lodged under the desk, the magazine that must have been the security officers, lay open to an image that left nothing to the imagination and caused her to blush. Quickly looking away she turned her attention to the control panel and tried to figure out how it worked. The dark buttons were coated in a fine layer of dust, making it hard to read. She carefully pressed one of them, that could have been green or may have been red, it was impossible to tell beneath the layers of dust and grime. The button clicked softly and did nothing else, not that she had expected any different result considering the lack of power.
She crouched down and stared at the controls for a moment, before she ducked and checked under the desk to see what else was there and found a small panel, most likely for servicing, that had become wedged shut, most likely when the chair's wheel had slammed into it. She pulled a few tools out of her belt and went to work opening it as fast as she could.
Seconds later the previously wedged panel stood open and she found herself looking at a small book. Pulling it out she flipped it open and found that it was what she needed, an emergency manual. Flipping through she found the section on emergency opening of the door, and the subheading power failure and began to read. Following the instructions, she found the appropriate panel and removed it, finding what she needed inside she flipped the handle with a lot of grunting and sweating. It gave suddenly and sent her splatting onto the floor. Rubbing her nose, she kicked the wall in frustration and went back to work, finding the manual crank and started turning. Eventually there was a low chain of clunking noises from the heavy door and when she stepped out and after giving the area one last look, gave it a push, finding that it swung in soundlessly, except for her grunting.
She stepped in, pistol out in one hand, her lantern in the other and found herself in a room about twelve by fifteen feet and made of stainless steel that shown brightly in the light. Racks of empty shelves and glass faced cabinets covered the walls, and in the middle of the room was a metal pillar that had tubes leading out of it.
She ignored it all and made her way to the far wall, were another door stood and raised her fist and gave the door a good hit. Listening to the low bong she waited and a few seconds later a replying bong came from the other side.
Smiling she got to work following much the same process as earlier to open this one and after another minute stepped back as the door swung in under Deathtrap's strength.
"Well someone took their time. Wow, you look rough, you alright?"
"Dusty and thirsty, but fine, but forget about me, what happened to you?" She said in concern looking over the other girl. Her arm was scratched in multiple places, as was her cheek and she had an odd line across the front of her shirt.
"Ah well, nothing much." She replied turning pink and looking away.
"Uraru" Deathtrap interjected, handing Artemis her bag and she promptly started re-equipping.
"Fine I'll tell her." She snapped before turning back "Well, when we heard gunfire I kinda tried to maybe come to help you through the vents, and it didn't really seem that small from the ground, and I didn't really think I was that much bigger than you so I may have kinda almost got stuck."
"Heh, that's no surprise, I mean I barely fit. If you remember I had to take off my gear to fit in and you're, well, larger than me in the uh..."
"If you mention my butt again..."
"What? No, you didn't even get that far, I was trying to find a polite way of saying you had a bigger chest than me, I mean I can still see the line across it."
"What? Damn it, babe why didn't you say something." She said quickly brushing across it.
"Urrur"
"Besides if you were gonna enter the vents, you really would need to remove that jacket, I bet those spikes were giving off one hell of a racket."
"Yeah, that's an understatement, probably a good thing I couldn't fit...Wait a minute!"
"Enough, I'm really glad you were that concerned about me, but I think we have more pressing matters at hand, don't you?"
"Speaking of which, what is that pounding noise I'm hearing? And what were you shooting at? And"
"And enough questions. The pounding you're hearing is the same thing I was shooting at. Well one of the things at least." And she gave a brief overview of what had just happened.
"Wait, so there's another one of those things? And its bulletproof?" She poked her head out the other door and pulled back quickly "Yep, that's an arm. At least of something."
"The rest of it's down that way somewhere, and I don't think the other one's bulletproof. Just resistant. I think it must be armored or something. I mean I did shoot it in the leg and injured it."
"Yeah but you said that just pissed it off."
"Yeah, but it still injured it, now if I had my back up piece, I think I could have killed it. Still, we should get going before too long, But now that I've got a moment. Where are we?"
"This was a storage room, I think." Gaige said moving to the central pillar and examining it. "Coolant hoses, power supply and backup supply, and I bet if, Babe? You want to do the honors?"
Deathtrap floated over and examined the top of the pillar before reaching out and twisting part of it and pulling the entire core of the pillar up, reveling slots where, at one time vials had been held.
"Just as I thought" Gaige said with a nod "This must have been where they kept the samples we heard about."
"But it sounded like they weren't kept here, I mean that science lady on the ECHO said something about wishing they could get sample number two brought here, and I somehow don't think that Jack ever made it back."
"You're right, about both parts in truth, but if they had the genetics of the samples, maybe some blood, they could have made more. I think I read somewhere that they could do that even from an electronic record or something."
"Then they could make someone out of it?"
"I don't think they ever got that part down, least I hope not. Though I did read something about bringing someone back from just being a head."
"Wait, what? Then why aren't more people doing that? I mean can you imagine someone like Jack coming back? Or someone like Holloway making a fake body to be killed?"
"Scary thoughts for sure. But there was a lot more to it, and it didn't seem like they had it figured out yet. Plus there was the fact that you had to have your head removed, placed in a jar, then someone had to go into your mind, find your memories and then, if that all didn't kill both of you, they sometimes, if some unknown conditions were met, would get a new Digi-structed body. But that body wasn't you, it was just a copy, and most people are too egotistical to not want themselves to benefit from it, besides, who wants to spend the rest of their lives in a fish tank?"
"Yeah, that does sound rather messed up, but then why have these samples at all?"
"Again, I'm just speculating, this isn't my area of expertise, but I think you can make blood and tissue from these samples to experiment on or with."
"So why not just make a new body?"
"Maybe they were, maybe that's what this place was doing. I mean I had heard that they hadn't figured it all out yet, but they were getting close. Making organs and stuff."
"So they could like, make new limbs for someone who lost one and stuff?"
"I don't think they're there yet, why? Would you want them if they could?"
Artemis looked at her metal hand and wiggled the fingers slightly "No. If nothing else this is a reminder of who I am. What made me, well, me. Plus it's something you helped me get."
"Hey, you made that all on your own. Be proud of that."
"I am."
"Well, I think we've gotten pretty far off topic, so let's get out of here."
They left the sample storage room, passed through the security gate and into the hall. Gaige looked at the arm as they passed and wondered what the hell these creatures were, and how they'd came to be, and if she really wanted to know the answer to that.
Artemis led them straight ahead and the incessant banging got louder as they passed the hall where the creature was trapped, and then it started fading as they moved on. After a short time, she paused and looked around, nothing had changed, doors stood on both sides of the hall, which stretched out in front of them, and at fairly regular intervals was intersected by other corridors.
"What is it?" Gaige whispered looking around.
"I just...are we going the right way?"
"How would I know? Weren't you the one leading?"
"Yeah but, I don't have a map and it just, well, wouldn't the correct way be near the samples?"
"Maybe, but I think they were probably taken to the lab, most likely."
"You mean the one down the other hall?"
"Yeah, I would guess that they must have taken them there to make samples to send to the main lab for the real experiments."
"Why not just do it at that lab?"
"You don't work with chemicals do you?"
"Rarely."
"Neither do I, but I guess I've had more experience with this kind of thing through the years. It would probably be to try and prevent cross contamination or something. I mean if something went wrong, and the experiment got spread around, like if it exploded or something, then the rest of the work samples would get contaminated by it and be useless, but if the originals were there, they would become useless as well. Get it?"
"Kinda, I guess. Just seems like a lot of work."
"It would be, but just like when we were trying to figure out that EMP thing, we didn't want to accidentally fry anything else, right?"
"Ah, better safe than sorry kinda thing?"
"Exactly, by the way, what are in these rooms?"
"I have no idea."
"What? I figured you knew, and that was why we were passing them."
"Nope. Only two I looked in were both empty. Meant to look in more, but I had to get to you first, and then it kinda slipped my mind."
"Slipped your...Well let's check a few then."
"Uh, someone should stay out here. At least some of the doors don't have handles on the inside."
"Don't have...What kind of idiotic design is that?"
"I donno, but it's how I trapped that creature in one of the rooms."
Gaige stormed over to the nearest door and threw it open, reveling a bare metal cube and poked her head around the door. "Huh, you're right. No handle. Weird."
So they proceeded with caution as they opened a dozen doors, finding rooms of varying sizes, all empty, before Deathtrap called them over, being the first to find something. They crowded in the doorway and looked at the small room that held a few small cases, stamped with the Hyperion logo.
Deathtrap chose to stay outside the door while the two girls went in and investigated. They started with the smallest of the boxes, one that was about the size of a SMG. Popping the latches, they swung the lid up and found themselves faced with a box filled with dense foam, and standing upright in it was a row of cards, each separated by a small amount of space.
"What are these?" Artemis said reaching in to extract one of the cards and held it up to the light "Wait. Is this a key card?"
"Looks like it. Doesn't look activated though. Must be a box of replacement cards in case someone loses theirs."
"Well, let's see what else we've got."
The next crate was filled with plastic wrapped security uniforms. And that was the way of the rest of the crates, each was filled with something useless, from forms, to manuals, to office supplies. Nothing of any use at the moment, so the girls sat back and pondered.
"Must be the supply room."
"Probably the entire wing is."
"Probably. But who would've emptied them all out like that, and where did they take the stuff?"
"Well, if you were stuck here for months or years, you probably would have made an effort to move the more useful stuff closer to where you were living or working, right?"
"That makes sense. Well, we'll probably find out once we get to the, what was it? Main Hub? Or something like that."
"Well, let's check a few more doors as we go, and get out of here."
They checked the doors as they went, finding a few more crates, all of which contained things that were relatively useless.
After a while they approached a large double door and off to the sides, they spotted a pair of large freight elevators set into the walls, a short ways down both of the side corridors. There were also undoubtedly stairs, but they hadn't looked for them.
They stepped up to the large doors and to their surprise found that the door controls were lit up.
Gaige punched the button, and nothing happened.
Artemis stepped up and swiped the key cards to no avail.
They looked at each other and sighed before Gaige crouched down and popped the panel loose and reached in to rewire it. A few seconds later there was a beep-boop noise and the doors slid open.
Readying their weapons, they stepped through into the new area.