Dismal Angel 2010 - Episode 14
Chapter 5: The Subbasements
Monet ran up the staircase and along a small corridor, a steel door faced her and she pulled it open quickly, rushed through and slammed it shut. She glanced down seeing water sliding along the floor in the groves of the steel flooring. "This steel door won't hold that water for long," she thought, she pulled off her oxygen tank, put it aside, she took a look around.
She was in some kind of bunking area – it was a hallway, the walls were lined with several bunks, they were numbered. Compulsively neat and orderly.
Something told Monet that this might be where those clones she'd seen would be bunking when they weren't doing other less than respectable things. She quickly walked along the hallway. She shivered, it was cold down here. Colder than it seemed it should have.
Monet was cautious as she passed the bunks, just in case there might be someone lurking around, but all was silent. Then, a high pitched sound broke the calm silence that had fallen around her, and made her heart almost stop within her chest. The low lighting in the hall turned blood red and began to flash as sirens were activated.
"Hmm, looks like they've noticed something's wrong," Monet took to the air and flew quickly across the hall, she rushed through an open doorway. It was once she'd gotten there that the random thoughts began to push into her mind. "NO!" she cried in dismay, "not now, I can't do this if I can't think!" she held her head, the onslaught of emotion overwhelming her. The sadness and grief of those who'd spent more than a year inside, some more than two. She could almost feel the physical pain of those who had been hurt. Somewhere in it all, she picked up the thoughts of Kitty Pryde.
{How can we stop this stupid flood, we're not miracle workers…I mean LOOK at it…oh my god, we're going to drown…we're going to turn to a watery grave.}
Monet had always thought Kitty a tad overdramatic but she wondered if it was true, the basements seemed to be flooding rather quickly, they were down far deeper than Monet had anticipated, which meant that the water would rise to it's natural level before stopping, that meant all the basements would be flooded, and Monet had a sneaking suspicion that the water level was probably a hundred feet higher than she was now.
"Another miscalculation gone wrong…" she uttered. The thoughts still attacking her, only occasional ones making sense. Something else was happening to her powers, they seemed to be growing at an immense speed. She could feel a presence, a trapped presence somewhere nearby. She could detect no thoughts, and if she could she felt they might be jumbled with the rest.
"Force the other thoughts out," she told herself angrily, pushing her soaking hair back from her face, she left the bunking area through the nearby open door, she went through a maze of hallways. The presence was pulling her like a magnet, drawing her to it. Her senses tingled the closer she got.
The thoughts began to drop away the harder she focused on closing out all other thoughts but her own, still some remained. One thought particular broke in that chilled her, although she had no explanation why.
{Something tells me we've been invaded…yet the sensors are picking up nothing…}.
Monet felt the hairs on the back of her neck standing on end, the voice in her head was cold, and almost emotionless. She shivered, but continued. The thoughts felt far enough away that she didn't feel in immediate danger. Something on the floor caught her eye.
It was a small rectangular shaped object, it looked like a mini-sized remote, almost like a electronic car alarm remote – it even had the small metal ring for it to latch onto keys. There were five different buttons on the face of the remote, all circled with a specific colour, red, yellow, green, blue and white. No text to indicate what they were for. "What is this?" she asked, she chewed her lip, looking at it. She slipped it onto a loop on the belt of the uniform she was wearing and continued down the hall.
"Whatever it is, I'll figure it out later…it was obviously dropped in a hurry, whatever it is…" she told herself sternly, the presence was close, she could feel it within her mind. It seemed familiar, and yet, at that moment she couldn't place it. She reached the end of a corridor in the labyrinth of steel walls. A pair of sliding doors stared at her. A circular shaped groove was in the wall, and in the dead centre, there was a slot at the left side of the threshold indicated she needed some kind of key to get in. A very wide…long key.
She glanced down to her hip, where the remote was hanging, the bottom of it was narrow, and looked as if it might fit, she turned it over in her hand. Yes, there was a sensor at the back of it. She took it off the loop and slipped the edge into the slot. Nothing seemed to be happening. She twisted the remote a little, the whole circle the lock was based on turned with it, and the doors slid open.
Another identical set of doors sat behind the ones that had just opened, and as she stepped through, the doors closed behind her. She opened the next set using the remote again, and the doors slid open, a further pair.
Her senses were going wild, she could feel she was very close to someone, a mutant, she could feel the energy now. What is this?" she asked as she opened the third door and came across a fourth door. The fourth door was different, the metal was different, it was adamantium. She'd seen that texture before, it was easy to spot right away. It had a different type of lock, and she despaired as she met with it. There were three buttons, but pressing just one indicated no response.
"Ah…tricky," she said to herself softly, "I believe that if this is to work…I must press the buttons in the right order…ah…it'd be so much easier if I could just punch my way through this…"
It took several attempts to get it right, but after trying what seemed like seventeen times, the door eventually opened, just as she'd been coming to the end of her tether with it.
A loud beep indicated it had worked, and the doors slid open slowly. She gazed into to the room, her senses screamed at her that she seemed to be in the right place. She was in a large room, the walls were steel, the floors, the ceiling, everything. Her footsteps echoed as she stepped in.
There was a man shackled to the wall, his hands completely encased, his long brown hair fallen completely over his face. He was completely nude, and there were no signs of his clothing nearby.
Monet did not recognise him at first. She noted a scar upon his chest that seemed to have some significance, although she didn't understand why, until he weakly raised his head to see her there, through the tangles of long brown hair, she saw the glitter of a glowing red eye in the dim lighting. "Mr LeBeau!" she gasped, she rushed over.
"D' I know you?" he asked with a weak yet gentle tone, he raised an eyebrow. His eyes were tired and dark, he looked thoroughly exhausted and drained.
"I'm from Xavier's," Monet assured, she gazed at the strange shackles over his hand, trying to understand how to undo them. "How do I undo these things?" she asked.
"Y' got a remote?"
"Yes," Monet responded.
"Hit yellow, green, red, white and blue in sequence," he stated, "I watched them the last time they did it," he drew his breath sharply, "why are you here?"
"I was on Muir Island when the X-Men were abducted by…whoever is behind this," Monet said, she gazed at the remote for a moment.
"The X-Men!?! They're here?!"
"I'm not sure about the rest," Monet responded, "But I know Miss Pryde is here, I'm a telepath, I sensed her thoughts…that's how I found you," Monet said, then pressed the buttons she'd been instructed to in sequence, yellow, green, red, white and blue. A soft beep indicated it had worked, and the shackles released Remy LeBeau, who fell into her arms weakly.
"Are you alright?"
"Nothin' that a cold beer, a shower and a nice hot woman won't cure," he grumbled, "we gotta get out of here before they send the clones," he rushed towards the door, naked as the day he was born.
"Uhm, may I ask why you're not wearing anything?" Monet asked following quickly.
"I got too many tricks up my sleeves, they say, so they took my clothes off so they can see I got no sleeves to hide tricks up," Remy stated quickly, he pushed the buttons on the door of the exit to open them. Monet noted how precisely he'd done it, he'd obviously seen it done before.
"What do you mean?" she asked, following him.
Remy took the remote from her, "in other words, every time they locked me away I found a way out," he stated, "I'd manage to pickpocket remotes off of the clones and hide them in my sleeves – that's until they found out about it…damn them, they get smarter every day…"
Monet followed him, "what's that thing on your neck?" she asked, noticing the glint of silver and the strange purple liquid that was in a tiny vial behind clear glass.
"Trouble, that's what it is," Remy replied, he tapped a few buttons on the remote and it fell off his neck and landed on the floor with a clank. He looked down to the floor, noting slight streams of water along the tiles, "what's this…"
"Oh…yes, I uhm, kind of flooded the place," Monet said, "which is why we need to get to the ground as quickly as possible."
"Flooding is good," Remy stated, "means their security rooms gonna be flooded, it'll short circuit everything," he stated, "c'mon."
"Can we find you some clothes?" Monet asked, slightly flustered.
"Later, we got no more time, we need to get the X-Men and break everyone out of this place…"
"What IS this place exactly?" Monet asked.
"It's mutant Hell," Remy responded, "lets go find the X-Men and put this shithole out of business."