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Cheyenne, Wyoming
Gambit's progress was painfully slow as he fastidiously scanned for and cleared booby traps from the team's path as they ascended towards the third level doorway. Not only did he have to inspect each step and the width of each walkway but also the protective caging that encased them. Jubilee was still grappling with the scanners, finally resorting to pleading with the infernal contraptions to entice them to complete just the smallest of tasks so she wouldn't return home empty handed.
" Brutal bastards. >" Gambit mumbled under his breath as he pulled his Bo staff from his coat, with a click it telescoped to its full length. He waved his team back as he retreated a few steps himself, then smacked the tip of the staff down sharply in the middle of the walkway. He barely withdrew it in time, the scrape of metal on metal widening his eyes as two concealed blades sprung out, blindingly fast, across the walkway, scissoring at about calf height. They were obviously intended to maim, if not outright amputate, the legs of anyone unfortunate enough to trigger them. A second later, another pair of long thin blades sprung from the protective caging at waist height, their stabbing motion intended to skewer what the lower blades had left behind.
"These guys play too much Tomb Raider or what?" Jubilee's wide eyes peered around Storm.
"Storm, if da insides as bad as de outside den we gonna be here an awful long time." Gambit crouched down level with the blades as he spoke, gingerly placing his fingers on top of them. The lower blades began to glow a faint, hazy magenta as he reached for the top blades, charging them as well. He turned his back on the glowing blades as they simultaneously popped with a dull, tinny burst, the shards dropping to the deck.
"Time delay?" Storm looked at him inquisitively. She knew his kinetic charging power was growing but had no idea that he had mastered this level of control again.
Gambit's sly smirk was all the response he offered.
"Would it be faster if I take the lead and trigger the devises?" Colossus offered. "By the look of them, there is not much that can hurt me."
"Yeah, let the tank through." Jubilee heartily agreed. "I wanna make it home sometime this century."
"Oui, all des traps be old school. Ain't seen not'in' dat could even scratch you, mon ami." Gambit agreed. "Dey won' hurt you, but de rest of us be a different story. Seen triggers dat will electrify de whole walkway, gas jets dat will shoot who knows what, and, Remy's favorite, a laser grid dat could turn us all into neat, one inch square chunks. You be fine but you be carryin' de rest of us home in a doggy bag."
"Please, Gambit, continue." Storm urged him forward. "We are almost at our destination."
Gambit returned to his task. Something about these traps seemed almost familiar. He couldn't remember encountering the likes of them before yet, there they were, firmly etched into the far corners of his memory. The traps and a faint memory of Jean Luc's voice both hovered just out of his reach.
Finally reaching the door, Nightcrawler 'ported in just behind Chamber to join the team. Gambit slowly reached for the nondescript doorknob but suddenly paused. It was just a hunch.
"Colossus" He motioned for the big man with a curt bow. " After you, mon ami."
Colossus twisted the knob and pushed the door in. Two tiny clicks emanated from inside the steel slab as he felt something harmlessly tap his palm. A needle oozing a viscous amber fluid had been triggered with the turn of the knob. He took two cautious steps into the room and a carpet of slender steel spikes sprung from the floor, some squealing as they curled up on themselves as they met the impenetrable barrier of his organic steel feet. His boots were another matter entirely. He looked back over his shoulder.
"What Gambit tell you? Old school t' a fault." Gambit smiled at him in self satisfaction.
"Yeesh! This is just way too B-movie cliche' for me." Jubilee bristled. But then her face brightened as she began rifling though the backpack looking for a different scanner. "But at least they left me something to take home with us." She triumphantly pulled a small machine from the pack, inserting a paper strip into the slot at top. She dabbed it at the liquid oozing from needle, then pressed a button to retract the strip for analysis.
I sure hope there is something in there worth all this trouble. Chamber grumbled from behind.
The metal hinges creaked just before snapping as Colossus ripped the door from its frame to create a path over the still protruding spikes. He gave a quick check around the small room as the team entered.
Thankfully, the maze of traps ended at the front door. Gambit continued on point as the team made their way through the complex. The power was still on, light fixtures illuminating the hallways and the flat, musty smell of recircluated air continuously breezing through the vents. Room after room of bland, featureless living quarters, meeting rooms, storage areas and common rooms offered little to their investigation as the levels spiraled down. The only distinguishing feature was the obsessive cleanliness. Desks were organized, papers all in their proper place, beds were made with hospital precision, not a speck of dust or grime could be seen anywhere. The place looked and smelled sterile, the faint odor of ammonia greeting them on each floor.
"Yes!" Jubilee shrieked with joy as her scanners came back on line five levels down. Immediately she shrank in her boots, her eyes wide as her voice echoed off the stairwell down into the levels below. Storm passed her a dour look.
"Sorry" she whispered with a shrug of her shoulders. She knew better than that. She immediately began pressing buttons and sweeping side to side, scanning the hallway, trying to make herself useful.
"Vhat exactly are ve looking for?" Nightcrawler pondered, as he halfheartedly shuffled through papers stacked on a desk, finding nothing of interest. "If dese Shockwave Riders vere the self appointed librarians of ze Neo den vere is all ze information zhey haf collected? I haf not even seen a computer terminal."
Did anyone else notice the lack of TVs or stereos or CD's? Chamber mused as he emerged from a small room. No posters, no family portraits, no artwork, no personal effects at all. This place looks like a barracks.
"I think I actually have something" Jubilee muttered as she made her scanner sweep. The faint reading led her back to the stairwell, increasing in strength as she leaned over the edge. "Welcome to the basement, get your teleporters here."
As the team continued their search room by room, level by level, Remy grew increasingly wary. Something about this place felt uncomfortably familiar, setting his nerves on edge as he pressed forward.
The sixth and seventh levels housed medical facilities. Gambit caught sight of a steel table in the first room they encountered and quickly volunteered to guard the stairwell. Storm just patted his shoulder with a warm smile. Most of the X-Men had at least one personal demon that haunted them. One of Remy's was labs. The team continued their search without giving it a second thought.
The eighth level looked more promising. The hallway was guarded by a massive steel door, a keyed panel blinking in the wall beside it. Gambit knelt down beside the panel, inspecting it's details then smiled wide. He tapped out a long sequence of numbers as he hummed along with the tune beeped out by the keys.
"...Papa Thibodeaux" He sung under his breath as the door clicked open.
"What was that?" Jubilee looked between him and the door, her eyebrows furrowed.
Yeah, that's a soddin' good question, mate. Chamber sounded more than a touch curious.
"De security system... designed by ma pere'." Gambit smiled as he kicked the door open. "Who better t' design a security system den a master t'ief, non? Always programmed a back door int' his systems 'case any o' de family should run int' dem."
"Convenient zhat ve should find zhat particular system here." Nightcrawler stated.
"Oui." Gambit agreed, his voice trailing off as his thoughts began churning. Too convenient. The archaic traps, Jean Luc's security system, even the flat smell of DE-ionized air were poking at his brain. These things felt familiar, connected somehow, but their significance remained elusive, annoying him to the point of distraction.
"Finally, we seem to be getting somewhere." Storm remarked as she stepped through the doorway into a huge room, obviously the control center for the entire complex. Bank after bank of screens, flashing scenes from hidden cameras located all over the interior of the complex lit the space in a flickering blue gray haze. Huge maps hung suspended from ceiling cables, dotted with pips and hand drawn trails, tracking the progress of something as yet unidentified. A massive plasma screen, imbedded in the far wall, was dark except for a single blinking cursor in the upper left-hand corner. Storm and Nightcrawler took up seats at the consoles, attempting to navigate through security systems and command protocols as Colossus and Chamber rifled through papers and maps neatly stacked on the large war table at the far end of the room. Gambit disinterestedly poked around at desks and file cabinets as Jubilee switched scanners, a contented smirk on her face as she collected Beast's readings. Her scanners were registering readings off the charts.
"Storm, I'm gonna take a closer look at dat security panel in de hallway." Gambit called across the room as he headed for the door. She nodded in his directions as she returned to her task.
Gambit knelt beside the panel once again. The system itself was incredibly sophisticated, modified beyond Jean Luc's original specifications. The only thing that distinguished the devise as Jean Luc's was the distinctive onyx and ruby display, an exclusive, signature feature of his designs. The '0' key now included a fingerprint scanner and a row of three buttons were added just below the numeric keys. Each button was inscribed with a geometric symbol, symbols that shouldn't be here, symbols that were known to only few handfuls of people across the globe. The first key was imprinted with the seal of the Thieves Guild, the second with that of the Assassins Guild. The symbol on the third he did not recognize. Just below the keys a small, concave, circular seal, was stamped into the surface of the steel plate, another unknown geometric design. He ran his fingertips over the foreign glyph, its distinctive pattern somehow felt familiar though he was fairly certain he had never seen it before.
How could dere possibly be Guild business here? Gambit shifted uncomfortably as the familiar, sinking feeling grew in his gut. If the Guilds had dealings with the Neo he would have known about it down to the smallest, most insignificant contract. And there was no way the Guild seals were here accidentally. Gambit squeezed hard at the bridge of his nose, the stress of the growing conflict already pounding in his head. He should tell Storm, divulge his findings to his team. But there was no way to know what else he might find or what it could possibly mean. He could already see where this was heading, his loyalty to the Guilds and to the X-Men once again coming into conflict at a most inopportune time. He took a deep breathe, letting it out with a long sigh as he stood to return to his team.
As he entered the room, all eyes were on the huge screen as Nightcrawler called up the last video log entry. As it began to play, the time/date stamp flashed in the upper left corner; the date, four weeks ago, in the wee hours of the morning. Alarms were blaring, men and women dashing around the command center in an orderly chaos, sentries calling off status reports, squads being deployed, all to one central location; the library. The screen split into six separate images from around the base. In each one, Neo of all ages were dashing about, focused and determined, acting instead of reacting as if this were a drill that had been repeatedly practiced. Each one had a job to do and they snapped to it with little to no direction.
There... Chamber pointed to the screen. …frame six. We haven't been there yet.
Kurt isolated and enlarged the frame to display a tight angle shot of an unfamiliar room. The floor was a pristine white marble, an antique carpet covering part of its view. Library reference desks sat barely in frame. The sound of voices and footfalls echoed resoundingly across the marble in what must be a massive space. Amid the voices one rose above the rest.
"They're in the archive! I need full response in the archive, NOW!" Then other voices followed the strained command.
"That's not possible.."
"..happened to the shields..."
"How did they get in..."
The tight angle view on the doorway widened to display the entire room as Neo streamed into the space, all heading for a doorway to the right. The huge circular space was lined with encased shelves, looking very much like a lending library but with a more exotic selection of reading materials. From the angle of the camera, the shelves filled with books, scrolls, tablets, even, huge sections of ancient stone walls etched with some form of writing were visible from the floor up to approximately sixty feet high and the walls seemed to continue even higher.
"The storage tanks." Colossus interjected. "They must have converted the storage tanks we past on the way in."
"Zhat is all ze footage here. Almost everyzing else has been deleted." Nightcrawler added.
"Then we locate an entrance to those tanks." Storm returned to her attention to the computer station before her. Minutes later, a map of the complex flashed onto the screen. She scanned through levels until they were denied access by a password prompt on their current level.
"Figures. Where's Kitty when you need her?" Jubilee grumbled.
Storm rose from her seat, heading for the door catching sight of Gambit at the back of the room.
"Gambit, did you find anything?"
"Non." Gambit's reply fell smoothly from his lips even as his stomach knotted with the response.