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Year Eighteen

The Outside - Part I

People are not meant to be trapped in white rooms. It does things to them. Stormkrigeren was pretty sure it made her insane because only an insane person would try to escape so close to being released.

It had been obvious from the start that she was meant to be in the Outside. She was meant to be a protector, and she could only protect her target well if she was Outside, not trapped in some damn laboratory. As she grew older, that fact became more and more obvious, though still the event of her release was rarely discussed. There had been a few times where Mister Wilson would occasionally mention plans for her to work with a mercenary team, and once even revealed that she was meant to complete assignments with them until it was finally decided she was ready to fly solo - albeit under Lex's attentive eye.

"One of Mother's covert action teams," Mr. Wilson had answered casually when Stormkrigeren pressed him for answers. "Not the best in the business, but they get a little action from time to time. They'll get you the experience you need, and some recognition to boot."

"What if I do not want to work with them? And who is Mother?" she had questioned, and he'd raised an accusatory eyebrow at that.

"Mother is the woman who will as good as own you the moment you're let out of here, simply because she is your best chance at fulfilling that purpose of yours Lex keeps going on about," he replied in a low voice, "And as for working with her, you're a student of Deathstroke the Terminator. You should be honored Mother even considered accepting you - she doesn't especially like me, though I can't imagine why."

"But I'd rather continue working with you," Stormkrigeren had frowned. Mister Wilson paused at that, giving her one of his signature glares that were virtually impossible to read, then he simply shrugged and picked up his blade to continue their training.

"It's already been decided. Do not waste the opportunity, Storm."

Deep down, she knew that Mister Wilson was in the right and the prospecting of completing both her training and her purpose in the Outside was thrilling. Out of her Rooms, Stormkrigeren could do what she was meant to do, and she could do it without the threat of white walls for the rest of her life. It was as her Teacher had always said - she existed in a state of 'brightest silence'. Her world was made up of light and lack of sound, if only so that she could focus on the opposite of both those things, but deep down, Stormkrigeren knew better. Brightness and silence only occurred when one was alone, and nothing could be closer to the truth. She was alone in her Rooms, she was alone in her differences, she was alone in her abilities, and she was alone in every sense of the word except for the fact that Stormkrigeren, oddly enough, wasn't lonely.

Being alone didn't scare Stormkrigeren - she was good at being alone. But being forcefully kept that way did.

And maybe she would have been okay with that if only for one other problem: her world was changing. Everyone was talking about it, even if they never discussed it with her, but Stormkrigeren knew all the same. There was a big change coming soon - the change that would occur when she was finally let out of her Rooms.

Stormkrigeren liked to understand things, and that was so much simpler when everything was clear in black-and-white. Her name in black words on white paper, black eyes and white bandages, and black knives sharp against white walls. Those were all good things, if only because she could understand them. But the change… the change made her world so much more complicated - nothing was black-and-white anymore, but black-and-white-and-red-and-gray and so many other colors and things she couldn't explain even to herself. Yet despite how much nothing made sense, Stormkrigeren still understood two things very clearly:

One, her existence and purpose were subject to the will of one man, and that man was Lex. Nothing happened or was given to her without his permission, and it was by his will that her life carried on as it did.

Two, stepping out of her Rooms into the wide world changed absolutely nothing - even surrounded by people, she would still be alone simply because that was how Lex wanted it.

If anything, she would be even more alone Outside.

The Outside was ruled by the laws of possession and power - who owned what and who was stronger. Both Mister Wilson and Lex were proof of that fact. And though Stormkrigeren may have been strong in the physical sense of the word, Lex… Lex had both power and possession over her. He cared for her, he provided for her, he ensured that she was trained and taught and well looked after, and he owned her. She belonged to him alone, and alone with him, she would remain. Chained to him without hope of escape, without justice.

But the thing about justice was that it was only truly real if one made it for themself - and even then, it rarely went to those who deserved it.

Unless something changed. Unless Stormkrigeren forced it to be otherwise. Unless she broke the walls holding her back, holding her in, locking her in his grasp. Unless… there was no 'brightest silence'.

And the only way to do that was to leave it behind altogether.

But Lex had been right all those times he had gently reminded her of the truth: the Rooms and their brightness and their silence were not exactly easy to escape.

But Lex had also made a mistake - he had forgotten what exactly his Project was and what she was capable of.

There was one way out of her Room: the main door. The Watching Room glass was nigh on impenetrable without the right tools, and the service doors in the kitchenette and storage room were sealed and double padlocked from the other side (Doctor Schreyer had told her so). So the main door it was.

There was no visible handle in her Room, and Stormkrigeren knew from experience that it only opened remotely from a button in the Watching Room. And even if she could find a way to force it, there was the issue that the security system could lock the hydraulics responsible for operating the door if it detected an anomalous opening.

That would have been the end of Stormkrigeren's plan if not for her two essential advantages: she had doctoral-level degrees in both electrical engineering and cybersecurity, and an incredibly dumb habit of completing any task she put her mind to.

The thing about automated doors was that according to the State of Delaware's detailed building laws, they were required to unlock automatically in the case of a fire or an electrical fault - and could then be forced open.

The thing about the recently-released LexOperating System Mark 1.4.12 was that someone with qualifications very similar to Stormkrigeren's could very easily cause something much like an electrical fault in any security system connected to the LexOS servers.

And the thing about having a doctoral-level degree in cybersecurity was that achieving it had led to Lex allowing her to "use that smart little head" of hers and write some of the code involved in keeping LexCorp's new LexOperating System up and running. So not only was Stormkrigeren familiar with how the system and its servers were designed, but she also had a very good idea of how to use them in all the wrong ways. Not to mention that LexOS just so happened to be the system involved in all the automated aspects and security systems of the LexCorp Research Park and its outbuildings - which, fortunately, included her Rooms.

Her first issue was the constant scrutiny of her computer activity - Doctor Schreyer, and subsequently, Lex could see everything she did via a monitoring application on her laptop. Stormkrigeren had tried not to laugh when it'd first been installed and simply tweaked the software's coding so it couldn't track anything she did using the Onion Browser, and occasionally reloading other applications created the perfect alibi for anyone tracking her actions.

It was not that hard to get into the operating system's main server as somehow Lex's genius had forgotten to revoke her permission status as a low-level coding monitor, so signing in took her all of twenty seconds. It took her another hour to weave through the various directories of companies that used LexOS until she found the one she wanted.

As a subsidiary of LexCorp, it was only natural that Lex Construction would use the operating system. And like any well-run business, kept all of their records neatly organized and compiled on the online cloud server, practically waiting for Stormkrigeren to sift through them until she came across the multi-level blueprints for the LexCorp Research Park's various buildings. The documents were not as accurate as she had hoped and had barely any information on the schematics of her Rooms beneath Research Laboratories Building #5, only listing them as 'Private Storage Units' with minimal electrical mechanics and security - but it would have to do.

The next step would be to dig deeper into the operating system's wireless connections in search of the security system portal that controlled the building above and her Rooms below when she was suddenly confronted with the disastrous problem of having what the computer called 'limited access'. After about twenty minutes of swearing under her breath and taking it out on the punching bag, Stormkrigeren sat back down determined to continue.

Her initial plan was to 'borrow' an access code from an unsuspecting monitor - but that would be too complicated, and unfortunately, this wasn't the 1980s where she could sneak in the backdoor with a Joshua password. Yet even with the technology of the 21st century, it was a war game nonetheless.

A DDoS-attack would be blatantly obvious, and in all likelihood would be shut down and blocked within seconds, but would still provide a decent distraction while she tried to convince the server to give her unlimited access. Orchestrating two attacks (a decoy and the genuine permission request) was a bit of an effort, made even harder when she had to route both of them through multiple VPNs and virtual machines to evade detection, but her hard work paid off. The main server granted her a temporary all-access passcode after she had finally convinced it that she was only an innocent maintenance coder.

To keep her operation discreet and unnoticed, Stormkrigeren allowed herself a short day of complete normalcy after saving her progress and clearing any evidence of her movements from both her computer and the server. Learning, working, and training continued on as usual, though she could not shake the sense that Mister Wilson suspected something when he arrived for another lesson consisting of high-intensity krav maga drills.

"You're slipping," he said flatly, his fist swinging close, but she easily dodged the blow.

"I'm feinting," she countered and quickly gained a strong position to aim a strike at his left side. It barely missed him.

"Nervous?"

She tensed involuntarily at the question just as he landed a punch on her shoulder, though she didn't let it stop her for even a moment as she shook her head. "Is there any reason I should be?"

"You're going to be let Outside. Mother is already organizing assignments and lessons for you," Mister Wilson growled in reply, bringing his leg up for a powerful kick. Stormkrigeren saw the move just in time and deflected it.

"I will complete them to the best of my ability," she replied evenly. Her teacher nodded and the lesson continued, the conversation deemed over. She got back to working on her escape plan the next morning - this time with a renewed passion for the taste of freedom.

From there, it only took another week of weaving through the lists of indexes and routers and switches, bypassing security at every checkpoint to eventually obtain live camera feeds of the LexCorp Research Park. Being just the humble laboratory of a philanthropic billionaire, there were hardly any watchmen stalking the clean halls - only a few scientists, assistants, and the occasional security guard appearing in the areas Stormkrigeren would have to pass through to reach the nearest emergency exit.

The other advantage of having unlimited access to the LexOS servers was her newfound ability to give commands directly to the system's script, which basically meant she could wreak havoc if she had the time. Stormkrigeren was tempted to throw a wrench into Lex's revered operating system (it was amazing how much deleting just a few lines of code could do), but any monitors might start to suspect something if she gave the server too many commands in such a short span of time.

It took nearly every ounce of control she had to refrain from burning the Rooms and everything they had made her down to ashes, but it would have to be enough to simply be out from under Lex's control before she took her revenge. For now, Stormkrigeren decided to keep it simple and not do much more than initiate an electrical fault in the Watching Room.

Obviously, she was not idiot enough to do it immediately and alert anyone to her plan before she was fully prepared.

The next week was spent immersing herself in Google Maps' street view of the surrounding city, memorizing the location of every gas station and Greyhound stop in Metropolis, especially along the route she would have to take in order to escape to relative safety. It felt a bit odd, looking out at the Metropolis that she had spent her entire life in but had never seen - a small part of her wanted to see it for herself, but she had neither the time nor the freedom to properly see the coast city in all its glory.

The focus of her plan was mostly on making her way out of the United States and into Canada, where hopefully she could catch a plane bound for India and quickly disappear into the Himalayan mountains before attempting to contact Mister Wilson. There was always the chance that the mercenary would try to drag her back to the Rooms, but Stormkrigeren had known her Teacher for years and was confident that he would only give chase if there was a price on her head big enough to interest him. She would burn that bridge when she came to it - if she ever reached it. For now, her only goal was a chance at life without Lex in it, and Stormkrigeren knew she would kill to make that goal reality. But first, she had to get that damn door open.

That's where the state of Delaware's building codes came in.

Chances were that unless the steel door leading in and out of her Rooms was unlocked remotely from the Watching Room, the only way it would open was if the security system controlling it detected an emergency requiring immediate evacuation of the premises. The two most convincing 'emergencies' in this case were either a raging fire or else something as simple as an electrical fault sending the system into reboot.

Causing a fire, though extremely tempting, was a bit of a hassle simply because of the fact that Stormkrigeren's Rooms were not installed with smoke detectors - if they had, the little things would have been blaring almost non-stop when Mister Wilson was there considering how often the two of them worked with fire in her lessons. Unfortunately, convincing the system that there was in fact a smoke detector in place would take a bit more time than she had.

Stormkrigeren's other option was an electrical fault. At first, that seemed simple enough - trip the main breaker to her Room and call it a day. But another twenty minutes of planning and she soon realized that a complete power loss would be both impossible and hinder her escape more than help it along. She needed a blackout that would have to remain limited to her Rooms and the Watching Room. Isolating the power loss would both ensure that no one in the upper building was alerted of the crisis and that whoever was watching the Project would not be able to spread the news that she was escaping.

Now, the security system did not accept commands from the LexOS servers to directly shut off all power, but it did allow for the remote reboot of certain aspects of the systems, such as the cameras, climate control, and atmospheric regulation. But if any one of those sub-systems happened to be disabled or disconnected when the reboot was requested, not only would the failsafe coding require the entire security system to reboot to remove the problem, but building codes required the electrical system in her Rooms to shut off as well, preventing a potential power surge. It was so utterly simple, Stormkrigeren was surprised she hadn't thought of it before - unplug a sub-system, request a reboot, and anything in her Rooms that was connected to a power socket would immediately be in darkness. With the security system out of the way, the door keeping her locked up in her Rooms could be forced open with ease.

And then Stormkrigeren could get Outside.

Despite the hundreds of times she had told herself that hesitation for reminiscence would be a waste of time, Stormkrigeren allowed herself one more day to mentally prepare herself. Mister Wilson was thankfully working on a contract out of the country - she had no reason to say goodbye to him and he would only criticize how tense she was. She tried to work it off by exhausting herself with training drills and exercise routines, attempting to seem as normal as possible to avoid suspicion, yet Stormkrigeren could not shake off the nervous excitement that came with the possibility of experiencing the Outside.

The lights turned off at exactly four-forty-eight AM that night - a bit later than usual, but she was used to bedtime being a highly random event that rarely occurred at a predictable moment. She did not even blink at the sudden darkness that permeated her Rooms, but followed the rules that had structured her entire life and obediently closed her laptop, making her way in the darkness towards the kitchenette to get ready for bed.

The lights in the small room were still on and would be for a few minutes more, allowing Stormkrigern to easily locate the small camera in the corner above the sink and expertly put her back to it. With practiced ease, she blocked its view of the kitchenette's utensil drawer as she made her way towards the bathroom at the far end - it only took a second for her to find the utility knife and slip it into her training pants as she shut the lavatory door behind her before promptly resuming the normal schedule.

Stormkrigeren spent the next fifteen minutes in the shower, taking the time to wash herself as clean as possible before she finally exited the stall to brush her damp hair and get dressed. Nothing fancy - a fresh pair of training sweats, a loose long-sleeve exercise shirt, and her running shoes - but she had planned the outfit carefully to be something that wouldn't draw too much attention and keep her decently protected if she had to spend a night or two outdoors. She put all of it on quickly, avoiding her own face in the mirror, though it was hard not to make eye contact when she was glaring at herself the whole time. The silver streak she had dyed into her hair last year had almost faded away by now, and the scar through her left eyebrow was showing again, but she still had her good looks and stormy blue eyes.

Stormkrigeren opened the cupboard behind the mirror to grab her sole possession - the key-spike that was the only inheritance she had. She fingered it for a long moment, adjusting the wide end between her third and fourth fingers like a shank and practicing a blow or two before tucking it safely into her bra. Ensuring that the utility knife was back in the waist of her pants and her hair done up in a braid, Stormkrigeren left the small bathroom and the traumas that had occurred within behind her.

Without meaning to, her breath caught in her throat as she stepped back into the overwhelming darkness that filled the main Room, but she did not allow the fear to cloud her mind as she moved towards her desk. Stormkrigeren knew she had maybe twenty or so seconds before the Watcher on duty noticed that she was deviating from the schedule, and another forty before they did anything about it - she would have to be quick.

She had taken the time to disable the climate control system by tripping its breaker in the electrical box in her kitchenette earlier that day - under the pretense of fixing the mini-fridge, of course. Now all that was left was to send the reboot request. Opening her laptop, she brought up a pre-loaded tab in her private browser for her purchased Greyhound ticket and quickly sent the file off to the unsecured Wi-Fi printer upstairs. A few more clicks of the tap pad brought her to the basis of the LexOS network she had spent the last month meticulously diving through, the code's insertion point blinking expectantly for her to execute the command that would set her escape in motion. She silently rested her finger on the Enter key, the light from the screen illuminating her face as she took a deep breath and glared up at the Watching Room window.

"No more 'Project Stormkrigeren'," she whispered, "The Game ends here."