The CMC is a huge sprawl of black metal at the edge of the Hub. When it was first built half a century ago it was only a third of its current size, but it grew along with Aku's war machine, and now it's an ugly mess of buildings and antennae and satellite dishes. They're building yet another section on the west side of it. The whole affair is surrounded by a high wall topped with a series of sensor relays, specifically for the purpose of keeping people like Hiro and Jack from climbing over them. But Juanita and Ng should be able to take care of those.
Except that they can't. "The external grid is on a different system," she tells him over the headset. "We've only got the inner defenses down."
Hiro grits his teeth in frustration. "Can you hack this grid?"
"We can try, but it's going to take a while," Juanita informs him, "And I'm not sure we have enough time."
Hiro looks at Jack, who is standing a few feet away from him, looking up at the top of the wall. "So we can't get in without alerting the guards. But if we have to do that…"
"There is another way," Jack says quietly.
"What?" Hiro blinks at him. "How?"
Jack points downwards. "I am standing on it." He smiles.
Hiro looks at the ground under Jack's feet, just as the samurai takes a step backwards. There's a heavy metal grate there, about two feet on a side – an opening more than big enough for them to slip through, if they can get the thing loose. "Damn. You really know your stuff," is all he can say.
"Huh? What's going on?" Y.T.'s voice says in his ear.
Hiro squats down by the grate and examines it. It's got a bolt in each corner, and though they are somewhat rusty they haven't been welded in. He'll be able to remove them. "We found a sewer grate. Looks like we're going to do some more urban spelunking," Hiro says. He opens one of the pouches on his utility belt and withdraws a small vial of oil and an appropriately-sized screwdriver. Jack takes the hint and looks through his equipment for similar items, then hunches down on the other side of the grate. They each use some oil to get the rust off the bolts before they apply the screwdrivers to remove them.
"It will not be as well-guarded as the wall," Ng says, "But there might still be sensors or other traps there. Be cautious."
It takes only a few minutes of work to get the bolts out of the grate. Hiro takes out his coil of nylon rope with attached collapsible grappling hook – what he was going to use to get over the wall – and instructs Jack to do the same.
"I'm going to put the end of the hook in the opening at this corner. You do the same in that corner, then press the catch to make the hook come open." Jack nods, and both of them get their hooks secured in the grate. Then they take up the ropes, get to their feet and go to the opposite side of the metal grille. "I'm going to count to three," Hiro tells him, "And then we pull this open. We have to be careful to set it down quietly, okay? All right. One…two…three!"
Even with the two of them pulling on it, the grate is very heavy, and it takes all of their strength to keep from just dropping it on the pavement. But they manage to set it down quietly. Then they get the ropes and hooks off. Unlike some of the sewer tunnels in the city, this one doesn't have lights in it, so they can't see down very far unaided. Hiro takes a flashlight off his belt and aims it down into the opening, checking to see how far down it reaches. The light beam reveals a river of sewage about twenty feet below. Further investigation reveals that it is flowing down the middle of a wide tunnel which, fortunately, has walkways on either side of it. If they use the ropes and swing it right they won't even get their feet wet.
Jack is already attaching his grappling hook on the edge of the opening. "I will go first." Hiro nods as Jack passes the length of rope through a metal ring on his belt. Once he has done that, he slides into the opening feet-first, then catches himself so that he is dangling about ten feet from the surface of the sewage. Hiro angles the light so that he will be able to see, and swing to, one of the flanking walkways. Jack lowers himself a little farther down, then starts to swing back and forth, moving a little farther from the center on each swing, until he gets his feet on one of the walkways, grabs a pipe running along the wall, and gets his balance.
Now that he is secure, he takes the rope out of the metal loop, then gets a flashlight from his belt and turns it on as Hiro switches off his own and puts it away. "I'm about to go down though the drain," Hiro informs Juanita and Y.T. over the headset. "You might lose the signal for a little while, but I'll tell you when I get into the base." Then Hiro waves to Jack, signaling that he is about to climb down himself.
Jack aims his flashlight beam so that Hiro can see his way down, but ends up shining it into his eyes by accident. Hiro turns his eyes away and waves frantically at Jack, who gets the message and moves the flashlight. Now Hiro can see the rope without being blinded. He pulls it up out of the opening, being careful not to dislodge the hook, and passes the end through the ring on his own belt. Then, with a little more hesitation than his partner before him, he slides into the hole, falls for a bit and manages to catch himself about fifteen feet down. Not as neat as the way Jack pulled it off, but at least he hasn't landed in the sludge. It smells really awful down here – he tries to ignore it.
He starts swinging, and after a few oscillations gets close enough to Jack that the other man can catch his arm and pull him onto the walkway. When he is secure, he takes the rope out of the belt ring, then shakes the rope until the hook comes loose from above. As it falls, he does some quick pulling and swinging of the rope to keep it from falling into the sewage. He succeeds in that, coils the cord and collapses the hook again before putting the whole thing back on his belt.
"We're in the sewer tunnel," he informs his allies over the headset, although he's not sure if it will work underground like this. Then he gets out his own flashlight. He and Jack walk down the tunnel in the direction of the CMC, sweeping the beams of their flashlights back and forth along the dark tunnel.
It's not long before they reach their first obstacle. Hiro stops walking when he sees it – Jack comes to a halt behind him. "What is it?" Jack asks.
"See these, on the walls?" Running up the wall, from just above the walkway to about head height, is a row of small metal rings. There is another row of the things on the other side of the tunnel, matching up to the first. "Laser emitters," Hiro says. "Hold on." He opens another pouch on his belt and pulls out a pair of goggles – special ones that can see light on several different wavelengths – and puts them on. He presses a switch on the left side, and a series of numbers, superimposed on his vision in white text, leap into view. He moves his finger to the small dial near the switch and adjusts it. With a click a series of red beams come into view, each connecting a laser emitter to its mate on the opposite wall. "This must be part of the outer defense system," Hiro says. "It's still on." He shines his flashlight around, searching for an object that looks like a circuit box, something that contains the electronics for this thing. While he's searching for that he finds a gun turret suspended from the ceiling not far down the tunnel. Good thing he noticed the laser emitters. He finds the circuit box a little later, but it's a long way down the tunnel from here. So he can't deactivate the lasers that way.
But there's more than one way to skin this cat. "I'll have to use an EMP charge," he says, "To short out the lasers. That will take it down for about ten seconds."
"What is an EMP charge?" Jack asks. Hiro forgot that Jack doesn't know this stuff.
"An Electro-Magnetic Pulse charge. It shorts out sophisticated electronic equipment," he answers, even as he's getting one of the devices out of a pocket on his coverall. He sets the timer on it to ten seconds. "Let's move back from it. We have some stuff that could get shorted by this thing." Jack nods and starts moving back the way they came. Hiro presses the "detonate" button and moves back. When he and Jack are several yards away from the thing it goes off with a blue flash and a zap noise. Hiro gestures to Jack and starts jogging forward, to get through the disabled laser grid while it's still down. Jack follows behind him. About a second after they get through Hiro hears an electronic crackle. He turns around to see that the laser grid is back in operation; they passed it just in time. Hiro takes off the goggles – they're uncomfortable to wear for any length of time – and puts them back in his belt. "Let's hope that's the last one we have to deal with," he says. On their way through the tunnel, he makes sure to mess with the circuit box so that they won't have to worry about the lasers on the way out, if they exit this way.
A little ways beyond the circuit box they come to a metal door. Hiro tries to open it – it's locked, but since there is a keyhole on this side that won't be a problem for long. He opens a thigh pocket on his coverall and gets out a case of lockpicks. Holding his flashlight in his teeth, he opens the case, selects a lockpick, and gets to work. After about a minute the lock goes click. Satisfied, Hiro removes the lockpick, puts it back in the case and returns the case to his pocket. Then he switches off the flashlight and puts it on his belt. He doesn't open the door immediately, though, since there might be someone or something nasty beyond. Since the walkway is too narrow for him to handle his katana easily, he draws the wakizashi from the front of his belt, and holds it in his right hand while he opens the door with his left.
There's nobody waiting beyond it. Nor is there a security camera – they must have thought that the laser grid and locked door would be enough to keep people out. There is a set of stairs, lit by a dim, buzzing fluorescent tube (even the faint light hurts his eyes a bit, after the dark of the sewer tunnel), with another metal door at the top. He sheathes his wakizashi, gestures to Jack and enters the door. Jack follows, and is careful to close the door quietly behind him. Hiro pads up the stairs and puts his ear to the other door at the top, listening for any potential threats on the other side. He can hear humming machinery but nothing else, and decides that it's safe. This one doesn't have a lock on it, since they aren't particularly worried about people reaching this stairwell from inside the CMC, so Hiro doesn't have to bother with the lockpicks this time. He looks down at Jack, standing a few steps below him, and nods. Then he reaches over his shoulder and draws his katana, which makes a metallic hiss as it slides out of the scabbard.
He gets into position facing sideways, his left foot on the uppermost step and his right two steps down. He holds the katana so that it's pointing at the door, then grasps the door handle in his left hand, presses the latch with his thumb and pulls it open.
The room beyond contains pipes and valves and boilers, but no guards or other security that he can see. He enters the door cautiously, eyes darting from side to side just in case something is hiding in the shadows. After a few seconds he determines that the room is completely safe, so he turns around and nods to Jack, who is holding the door open at the top of the stairs. He steps through the door and, as he did with the last one, closes it quietly.
"Can you hear me? We're out of the sewers now," he says over the headset.
"Gotcha," Y.T.'s voice says.
"Loud and clear," from Juanita.
"Good," Hiro says. Then he addresses Jack. "Draw your sword and wait at the other door there, in case someone comes in. I have to figure out where we are."
Jack nods and complies as Hiro sheathes his own sword, but once he's at the door he asks "How are you going to find our position?"
"With this thing," Hiro replies, taking a sensor device off his belt. It looks like a bulky calculator, with extra buttons and a large screen. But this interesting little device is actually one of Ng's best-selling items – a sophisticated scanner that has a range of up to fifty meters on open ground, and thirty through walls of rock or metal. He activates it and sweeps it around, so that it can get a scan of the room as well as the ones adjacent to it. It compares that scan to a map of the CMC stored in its memory, looking for a pattern of rooms that matches the data. When it finds one, it shows him where he is, in square Z-14 of the map grid. His position is indicated by a flashing red dot. A white arrow indicates the direction of their objective the control tower. With the press of a button, Hiro zooms out on the map view to get a more general idea of his location. Once he's determined which way he should go next, he turns the thing off and puts it on his belt again, then goes to join Jack at the door.
There, he draws his own katana. "We'll, here we go," he says gravely. "Now the fun really starts."
~***~
Jack feels as if he is watching himself from somewhere far away. His feet and hands move automatically, every noise seems muffled or distant, everything he sees is somehow at a remove from him. Life has been so surreal since he picked up that disc a few days ago – how did he get from there to here?
Part of him wishes that the enemy would discover his and Hiro's presence here and raise the alarm. This sneaking about like a ninja does not suit him – he would rather fight his way to his object than creep to it. But if they do have to fight their way through, they might not get there in time. They have about an hour left, but he has no idea how close they are to their object.
"This one," Hiro whispers, stopping at the door at the end of the corridor. There's a keypad beside it, which means that it requires a number code. Jack automatically moves to cover Hiro as he sheathes his katana and gets out one of his many special devices and sets to work breaking the lock. Jack watches the doors along the corridor, and the opposite end of it. He listens carefully for the sound of footsteps.
In less than a minute, Hiro has broken the number lock. As he steps back he puts the code-breaking device back on his belt and gets a palm-sized, inch-thick silver disk from a pocket on the thigh of his coverall. "There's probably some people in there," he says, "So I need you to press this green button" – he points to said button, situated beneath the number pad for the door lock – "and I'll toss this thing in there. Then when you hear a hissing noise, press it again." Jack nods, moves to the control panel and puts his finger on the button.
"One…two…three!" Jack presses the button and, as the door is sliding open, Hiro flicks the disc through it so that it skids across the floor. He can see some of the room beyond; control panels and screens and, as his comrade predicted, a person sitting at one of the control panels – probably not the only one in the room, but from this angle he cannot tell for certain. Nor can he tell determine the exact meaning of the expression on that person's face, because the face is equipped with three eyes and mandibles, but he guesses it to be puzzlement. Then he hears a hissing noise from inside the room and presses the button on the door again.
He looks over at Hiro, who is looking at a watch on his wrist. After about thirty seconds he looks up again. "We can go in now." He draws his own katana as Jack presses the green button again, opening the door a second time. Hiro goes in first, with his sword ready, but as it turns out there is no need for it. The people in the room are in no condition to put up a fight or raise the alarm. Jack catches sight of the silver disc in the middle of the floor – now it has little round holes in its sides, spaced at regular intervals. He now has some idea of what that device is, and what the hissing noise was.
"They are not dead, are they?" Killing people in this manner, even if they did work for Aku, did not appeal to his sense of morals.
Hiro shakes his head, and Jack feels some sense of relief. "They'll just be unconscious for a few hours," he says, sheathing his katana again. "Watch the door for me, please," he says as he goes to one of the control panels farther down the room. There is someone slumped in the chair in front of that panel – Hiro pushes him out of it and off to the side before taking his seat, stretching his fingers and getting to work on the keyboard. The screens above the panel flash and change as the keys click, but Jack is both too far away and too ignorant in the subject to tell what they might indicate, or how they are related to whatever Hiro is doing.
"I got it!" Hiro announces after a few moments. Then he reaches into one of the coverall pockets and withdraws a disc not unlike the one Jack brought to him a few days ago. He removes it from its plastic case and inserts it into a slot above the keyboard, then starts working again. Then he leans back in the chair and grins. "Message sent – the party's set to start at midnight."
"Great!" Juanita congratulates them over the headset. "Now just cover your tracks and get out of there."
"Just a few more minutes," Hiro says to Jack. This time the clicking of keys and flashing of screens lasts for five minutes. With a mischevious smile and a sense of finality, Hiro presses a button next to the slot where he put the disc. It is ejected again, and he puts it in his case and returns it to his pocket before standing up from the chair. "If anyone gets here before midnight, they'll think we stole something instead of sending it," he tells Jack. Jack refrains from asking how they could tell one way or the other; he is sure that he would not understand the answer at all.
"Now for the best part," Hiro says jovially, "Getting the hell out of here." Jack smiles, nods in his direction and presses the button by the door.
When the portal slides open, it suddenly becomes obvious that getting out will not be as easy as they thought. Jack ducks away from the open door, but the two guards have already seen him. He hears shouting, and the sound of feet on a metal floor. His eyes flick to Hiro in time to see him aim and fire his pistol.
There is a strange noise as a burst of red light shoots from the muzzle of the gun, and then a cry of pain from the corridor outside. Then another noise begins, a loud, wailing siren, and a rotating red light comes to life in the center of the ceiling above. Hiro puts away his gun and draws his katana. He does not say anything, but the glance he exchanges with Jack is enough to convey the message.
Things have just become a lot more difficult.