Infiltration

After losing the last of their Enforcer pursuers, the two Swat Kats and their young charge breathed a sigh of relief. T-Bone checked his heading and made adjustments to the course and speed, but Razor was more preoccupied.
"Don't you think something was wrong there T-Bone?" he asked, cautiously bringing up the nub of his thoughts.
"What, aside from the fact the Enforcers tried to shoot us out of the sky on Steele's command?" T-Bone replied sarcastically.
"Exactly" said Razor. "Isn't it odd that Feral wasn't there at all? I mean, if he was told about what happened the other night he would be hopping mad right now, but there was no sign of him or Felina in that chopper squadron."
"Yeah, I noticed that too" T-Bone replied. "Steele must have got Feral out the way somehow."
They were cut short in their conversation as the instrument panel began to emit a harsh beeping noise, signalling that they were approaching their destination. T-Bone throttled back as they approached the site and brought the Turbokat down behind the cover of some trees. They were up on a small rise overlooking the heavily guarded complex of buildings below.
"So how are we getting in?" T-Bone asked Razor.
"We'll need that staff of yours again, Cody. If you would" he replied.
Cody raised the staff and banged it down into the ground, the diodes lit up and wind began to swirl. The wind whipped the desert-like terrain around the facility into a fully-blown dust bowl, which they used as cover to get close to the chain-link perimeter fence. T-Bone and Razor cut a hole in the fence with ease, and they headed through with Cody close behind, holding the staff aloft.
One of the guards spotted them, but he was quickly neutralised by a stun dart from Razor's glovatrix which sent him straight off into a deep sleep. T-Bone grabbed the guard's key card as they headed into the shadow of building.
Once they were under cover, Cody lowered the staff, causing the storm to subside almost instantly. Weakened by the effort of running while maintaining the storm, he collapsed on the ground. T-Bone ran over to Cody's body as he fell, but to his relief Cody was still breathing.
"That's what happened last time he did that" Razor observed.
"That doesn't make it any better" T-Bone snapped back, picking up Cody's limp form and carrying him through a door that Razor had just unlocked into the facility.
The group walked down a long corridor until it branched off in three directions.
"Which way now?" asked T-Bone.
"This could take all day" said Razor, but was cut of by an urgent squeaking from Cody, who had woken up in T-Bone's arms and was pointing vigorously down the centre passage.
"What is it Cody, you know where he is?" Razor asked, not quite willing to take the word of the kid over his own instinct to not go any further until he had established more about the building.
"Xenon... That way..." Cody said, pointing again at the centre corridor.
"We've got nothing else to go on" said T-Bone, walking off down the corridor. Razor sighed, but followed.
The group proceeded cautiously into the bowels of the Enforcer facility. Frequently they had to dart into broom closets and unoccupied rooms to avoid the numerous Enforcer guard patrols.
After a time, they turned into a corridor that led down to a door marked, ominously, 'Trial Centre'.
"Are you sure that's where his is?" T-Bone asked Cody, wondering to himself how this child seemed to know his way around this labyrinth of a building. Cody pointed at the door and nodded the affirmative.
They walked up to the windowless door, and Razor put out a hand to stop T-Bone as he went to open the door. Activating a button on his glovatrix, Razor scanned the door.
"Only one person in there" he announced after consulting the readout.
"About time" replied T-Bone, throwing his full weight against the door, expecting it to crash open. Instead, T-Bone bounced off it, reeling with shock.
"You could try the key card" said Razor sarcastically, using the access card he had taken from the guard on the swipe panel next to the door, which swung open.
Inside was pitch black, but as they entered and their eyes became accustomed to the gloom, they noticed a figure sitting, hunched, on a bed...

---

Back at Enforcer Headquarters, all hell was in the process of breaking loose. Steele, as had become his custom, was marching through the building shouting at anyone who crossed his path. As far as he was concerned, the Swat Kats' escape with his anti-mutagen was nothing short of catastrophic. Worse, he had been informed by a guard at the railway station that Commander Feral & his niece were catching an earlier train back, and would have returned by the end of the day. His plans were in ruins, and he had no idea how to salvage things. A passing trooper braced himself to take some abuse, which would have been forthcoming had a secretary not run up to Steele and announced that Puma-Dyne's representatives had arrived.
Steele tried to make himself look rather less dishevelled as he entered the conference room where three kats from Puma-Dyne waited.
"Good Afternoon" Steele said in a voice desperate to sound ingratiating.
"No, Acting Commander Steele, it is not." said the first kat.
"Indeed, it would be quite accurate to describe the situation as a deeply bad afternoon" seconded the next kat.
"Certainly it is a dismal afternoon" the third kat stated, rather unnecessarily.
"Well, dismal may be going a bit far... Err, things are in hand, well in hand, all will be done, yes, all will, err, be done in time, well in time, yes..." Steele blurted out in a rush.
"No, they are not well in hand, will not be done in time, and dismal is not going remotely far enough" the first kat replied.
"Indeed, you have failed magnificently to achieve any of the goals set to you, and have achieved disastrous results in what you have done" the second kat added.
"Certainly, you have made a thoroughly disgraceful hash of affairs" the third continued, again, somewhat unnecessarily.
"L-L-Look, perhaps things are not going as per the plan, b-b-but my Enforcers will handle it" stammered an increasingly nervous Steele.
"No. They are not your Enforcers, and they will not handle it" said the first kat.
"Indeed, you are to be commended only in your absurd pursuance of this claim that things will work out" added the second kat.
"Certainly, things have reached a stage that we will no longer continue with our arrangement" continued the third kat, in his first useful statement of the conference.
"You, you, you can't do that!" Steele stuttered as he attempted to salvage the situation.
"No, Feral will arrive back shortly and discover the extent of the situation. You have failed in your duties to us, so we will not honour ours to you. We have our own resources, and will deal with the situation in-house as of now" said the first kat.
"Indeed, our own personnel will handle the situation." added the second kat.
"Certainly" the third kat said, before holding up the contract Steele had signed with them, and setting fire to it. The ashes fluttered to the ground before Steele's dismayed eyes.
"No longer are you associated with Puma-Dyne" said the first kat.
"Indeed, our contract is now terminated" added the second.
"Certainly, you may consider yourself retired from genetic engineering testing" the third kat added, returning to his stating of the obvious.
The three Puma-Dyne kats walked past Steele and headed out of the building. For the second time that day, Steele was left speechless. It took him a while to recover his composure. Once he had, he called the three troopers he had sent out to the bus up to his office.
"Right, damage limitation time" he started. "We need to ensure that Feral does not get wind of what has happened. I'm not going down alone if Feral does find out" he threatened.
"What do you plan to do?" asked the lead trooper. "How can you destroy all the evidence?"
"Easy. My good friends at Puma-Dyne have already destroyed any evidence of our employment through them, so the loose ends that need tidying up are just the two mutated prisoners and the kid. Surely, you can handle those?" Steele replied.
"Sir, the mutants could have become anything by now..." started the trooper, but he was cut off by Steele.
"As if I would entrust dealing with them to you imbeciles!" bellowed Steele, in a return to his usual form. "All I want from you is to ensure that that kid is on the six o'clock news, or you will be all over the headlines by ten!" The three troopers decided to get out while the going was good, and headed down to the vehicle pool.
"Right" said the lead trooper as they went down in the lift "fortunately, we know that they'll probably take the kid to find Xenon, and he's at the work camp out in the desert. We'll pound that facility into the dust, and if we're lucky, we'll be able to frame up Viper or Dark Kat and leave them to the Swat Kats."
Despite the clearly gratuitous destruction entailed in the plan, the subordinate troopers followed their leader into a tank and headed for the prison camp, the rest of the tank battalion in tow...