Okay, I am back and ready to roll! It's summer and I have nothing but time to write. I am SO excited to continue writing with this story. It's my baby. Anyways, I'm so sorry for how long it's been. But please review and let me know what you think of this chapter. Thanks!
Storygirl99210 - Thanks, and I'm sorry for how long it's been. Hope you like this one as well.
iUpelKuchen - Well, it was amusing, I'll give you that. And I'm very happy that you love my story so much. That made my day.
Oh, and don't worry, Mark will be popping up sooner than you think. Especially if you go and read Conley's story, Probie. He'll be there quite a bit….(shh, don't tell anybody!) I'll be a little while before everybody really gets to see her, but there will be people popping up here and there in the mean time. Especially since the facility is in Blüdhaven(I never mentioned that was where they were)….Oh, and I'm really glad that you like my other story. I agree, it's not as good as this, but it's my baby and I still love it. I plan on updating for that soon.
Onyx JDShadow - I'm know you said not to rush, but this amount of time was a little rediculous…Don't you think? I'm sorry for the long wait. I hope it was worth it.
Yach - I'm so glad you like it so much. I hope this chapter was worth the wait.
Chapter 5
Plans
"I'm impressed," Master said to the young woman kneeling before him. "I did not expect you to be the one to bring in our new recruit."
"I was given a mission, Master," she answered. "I will perform the task to the best of my abilities."
"I see that," he added. "This gives me great hopes and expectations for the coming future, my girl."
I'm so not your girl, Cody thought. "I look forward to aiding you further in the future, Master."
"The future is closer than you may believe," he said. "An associate of mine is sending his son here for several of you. He wishes to create a small group to work under his son. Originally, I was just going to send a couple of the group members, but you are proving to be a very loyal servant to me.
"My associate is a very important individual whom I owe very much to. To show my gratitude for everything he's done for me, I would like you to go with them. Serve his son as you have been serving me these past few years. He will greatly appreciate it."
"Yes, Master," she said. "I shall make you proud." Make you proud my ass.
"That is all for now, child," he said. "Take your leave. I will inform you on the details of this next mission when the time is right."
Cody bowed before slowly getting up and making her way out of the room. When she heard Master had wanted a private meeting with her, she had prepared herself for the worst. She thought she was going to be scolded for heading in to get Conley all on her own, but instead she was completely shocked to find that he thought the exact opposite. She had taken the initiative and performed the task efficiently.
Despite feeling rather dirty for what she had done, Cody couldn't help but feel rather pleased and proud of herself. She had actually done something right for a change. Her plan was going into effect very nicely and, to her surprise, everything was going very smoothly. If they kept going like that, Conley would be out of their facility that evening with a boat load of valuable information to hand off to the Team. Master wouldn't suspect a thing from Cody and she'd then go onto the next mission to get even more valuable intel from this "associate."
This is the reason I stayed on for so long. This valuable information can really go a long way in the right hands. And putting it right in the hands of the Team and the Justice League is the perfect place for it to go in order for it to be used to its full benefit. Cody turned into her room and plopped down on her bed. They'll use it to crucify these guys.
There was a knock on the door and Cody groaned. She had just gotten in there and had been looking forward to doing nothing for at least ten minutes. Who could possibly want her to do something? Not many people even knew she was back from the extraction, who could possibly have something so important for her to do that couldn't wait at least half an hour?
Despite how unselfish Cody was, being around the assassins had made slightly cynical when it came to her alone, peaceful, quiet time. Those times were very few and far in-between. And despite wanting nothing more than to just continue to lay there and ignore whoever it was, she got up and quickly opened the door.
It shouldn't have surprised Cody to see Lucas standing there with a clipboard.
"What?" she asked.
Lucas seemed a little taken aback by her attitude. "Uh, did I do something wrong?" he asked.
Cody took in a deep breath and shook her head. "No, sorry. I suppose I'm just a little stressed." She leaned on one of her feet more than the other, getting a little impatient waiting for him to continue on with why he was there. "Did you need something?" she asked.
"Oh! Right, I have to take some blood from Project-Omega," he said. "Master wants us to start tests tomorrow, so I need to take some blood for some simple tests before anything else can be done."
"So soon?" Cody asked. "We just brought her in. Don't they usually wait a week or so?"
"He wants to have it done as soon as possible to show some of his partners," Lucas answered. "So I need someone to take her out of the holding cell and bring her to the lab."
The brunette knew what he was getting at. Ever since Lucas and Cody started working together, Lucas has been scrambling the microphones in his lab so that they could speak freely in there without worrying about having anybody listening in. His lab was a private one, with only him in it. He was the one person that continued to the experiments that most, making most of the chemicals on his own.
"Of course," she said. "I'll go get her and meet you in your lab."
Lucas went down one way and Cody turned down the opposite. When she came to the stairs she went all the way to the bottom and through a heavy metal door covered in rust. The door was extremely heavy, even for how strong Cody was.
Just beyond that door, it was link a whole other world compared to the rest of the facility. Most of the facility was very clean and sterile. Beyond that door was a creepy, rusted dungeon like area. There were hallways upon hallways designed to confuse its captives if they escaped. Only the people that put them in there, like Cody and the rest of the assassins, knew really how to make their way around in there without getting lost.
Finally, Cody got to the damp cell that the young teenage girl was asleep in. Conley looked incredibly uncomfortable on the wooden bench. Her brown hair was a mess and her one of her legs was hanging off of the bench. One of her arms had fallen over her face, squishing her nose. Cody had to keep herself from laughing.
This girl was just an odd ball.
Cody, despite knowing that she had to bring Conley up to the lab, didn't want to wake the girl up. There was going to be a lot going on in the next couple days and she was going to get stressed. She needed all of the rest she could get.
The blue eyed girl suddenly bolted up and looked around the cell. With everything that had gone on, Cody wasn't surprised that she was confused on her whereabouts. Cody had knocked her out before bringing her there.
"It's about time you woke up," Cody said.
Conley jumped again, almost letting out a screech in surprise. "Oh my God, you scared the crap out of me," she huffed.
"You should be scared," Cody said. "It keeps you on your toes."
Conley looked up at the woman with a raised brow. Cody had to make sure she wasn't being too friendly. There were ears everywhere. She could afford to give away the plan. The girl opened the cell and quickly walked in, grabbing the girl by her arm and pulled her out. She left the door open, not bothering to turn back and close it. She'd be going back in there later anyways.
"Where are you taking me?" Conley asked, a small amount of fear showing through her tone. "Cody, you're hurting my arm."
Cody lightened up on her hold slightly, but continued pulling the girl along. She couldn't be seen as gentle. She was supposed to be a loyal assassin, not a "soft hero." So instead of answering Conley's question, she continued through the halls until they came to the heavy door. She pushed it open with one hand with great difficulty before dragging the girl up several flights of stairs and out into the hallways towards the lab.
Once at the lab, Cody shoved the girl in and then turned back around to the door. She slammed it shut, bolting it. Cody took in a deep breath before turning back to the younger girl, who had taken up studying the area around her, as well as Lucas. Cody had done the same thing her first time in that room, however, her experience was a lot worse than Conley's.
"Why are we here?" Conley asked.
"This is Lucas," Cody said.
Lucas walked over to the two, needle in one hand. With is other hand, he stuck it out to Conley to shake. Conley backed away slightly, seeing the needle. Maybe she had some sort of fear of needles? Cody didn't know, but she hadn't seen the girl so alert before.
That's good, Cody thought. She needs to be on guard.
"Oh, my apologies," he said, putting the syringe on the table. "I'm Dr. Lucia. I'm the head scientist here. I work with Cody. Very closely, in fact." His tone was trying to put out that they were working together on trying to bring down the organization, but Cody could clearly see that the young girl wasn't completely believing the words coming out of his mouth.
"Conley, Lucas is a friend," she said. "We're working together. He gives me the information that I eventually hand over to the other side. The information I'm going to be giving you comes from him."
"Oh," Conley finally said, relaxing slighting. "I thought he was going to stick me with that needle."
"Oh, I am," he said. "I do need to take some blood to it look like there's an actual purpose for you to be in here, but it's only a little. You'll barely feel a thing."
"I hate needles," Conley whined.
"You'll have to deal with worse things than needle," Cody said. Cody moved over to one of the corners of the room so that she could have a vantage point of everything in the room. She leaned against the wall with her arms crossed across her chest.
"I know," Conley insisted. "I'm fine with knives and guns and stuff, just not needles. They give me the creeps."
Lucas led the girl over to an examination table and had her jump up on top of it to take a seat. He cleaned the spot where he had to take the blood and started talking to distract the young teenager, though it wasn't an uncommon thing for him to start doing. He often rambled on about everything and anything, despite his lack of social skills. Perhaps that was why he did it in the first place.
"I'm that way with spiders," Lucas said. "And heights. And gun. And knives. Oh, and peacocks. Their tails always seem to look like they're watching you. Oh, and children. I don't like children. They're always sticky. Peaches aren't right either. I mean, why are they fuzzy? It's just not natu-"
"Lucas," Cody said, cutting him off.
"Right, sorry," he said. He pulled the needle out and held it up to the light, looking at the red liquid inside. Be put it down on the table beside him before putting a bandage on Conley's arm. "There we go. All set."
"Now to get down to business," Cody said. "We have a lot of talk about and a short amount of time to get it said."
"Right," Conley said, trying to be serious.
"You're going to break out tonight," Cody said.
"That soon?" Conley asked.
"Master wants us to start the tests tomorrow morning," Lucas said, putting some of the blood under a microscope. He scribbled some stuff down on a clip board before going on, without taking his eyes off of the machine, "So it's either tonight or never."
"Tonight it is," Conley said. "So what's the plan to prevent me from being a lab rat?"
"You weren't the lab rat," Lucas said. "Tha-"
"Irrelevant," Cody interrupted.
"Right," Lucas said.
"Conley, there's a lot that we have to go over. You're going to have to remember it all. Can you try and do that for me?"
"Yeah, I'm going to have to if I want to get out of here," Conley said.
"She has a point," Lucas said.
Cody huffed. Why was getting the plan out so difficult? "Guys," Cody said. "Focus."
"Right!" they both said.
Cody pushed off of the wall and walked over to the girl. "The door to the cell has half pin barreled hinges. If you use the bench you'll be able to unhinge it." Cody pulled off the watch on her wrist and started to clasp it onto Conley's wrist. "There's a shift change at ten o' clock tonight. That's when you'll make your escape."
"But I don't know the way out of here," Conley said.
"When we go back down to the cell's pay attention to the hallways," Cody said, leaning back against the wall again.
"But what about when I get out of there?" Conley asked.
"That's the tricky part," Cody said. "Once you get to the stairwell, make your way up to the seventh floor. There's a duct right above the door. You'll have to unhinge the grate and crawl through it."
"I don't have anything to use as a screw driver," Conley said.
Lucas suddenly jumped up, hitting his knees on the bottom of the lab bench he was sitting at. "I've got that covered," he said. He went to a cabinet and open three draws, rummaging through until he laughed and pulled out an extremely small screw driver that couldn't have been bigger than two inches. The man walked over and tossed it to the girl. "There you go."
"Thanks," she said with a light smile on her face after watching the man.
"Now, you're really going to have to remember the directions through the vents," Cody said. "Once you're in, you'll have to take the first left you see. Continue down that passage until you get to the fourth right. Go all the way down that passage. At the end there'll be a shaft above you head. You're going to have to go straight up it until you hit the roof. When you get there, you're out. You just have to make sure you stay hidden so we don't find you when they send us to search."
"Oh, and you have to do all that in fifteen minutes," Lucas said.
"Right," Cody said.
"What?" Conley almost yelled. "I only have fifteen minutes? I could barely find my way around one end of the circus to the other in that amount of time, and we've been setting it up the same say for all of the years I've been in it!"
"You're going to have to if you want to get out before they close the ventilation system," Cody said. "I'll be fifteen minutes before the new guard on shift notices they you're not there."
"Oh, this'll be fun, I can just tell," Conley grumbled.
"You're not done after that though," Cody said.
"Oh yay, more work," the young girl said.
"Boy, aren't you a ball of sarcasm," Lucas chuckled. "She's even more of a handful than you, Cody."
"I'm not a handful, now, can we please get back to business?" she asked.
"Is she always this serious?" Conley asked the scientist.
"She hadn't always been," he answered.
"I am standing right here, you know," Cody said. They didn't seem to care as they continued on talking as if she wasn't there at all.
"She used to be a lot more fun," Lucas said. "They had me observing video feeds of her before they actually captured her and she was a lot more easy going. Now she's all work and no play."
"Enough!" Cody snapped, making the other two jump. Cody glared at the two. "Is this a joke to you two? If this doesn't go down as planned, they won't just kill me, Conley. They'll kill Lucas and you. Do you understand that?"
Cody notice the small girl shrink down. "Yeah, sorry."
The green eyes woman walked over to the girl and bent down in front of her so she could look in her blue eyes. "Look, Conley. I'm sorry. There's just a lot going on right now, okay? We have to get through this so the next stage of the plan can go into effect. The sooner we have this done, the sooner you can get out of here and to a safer place.
"We just have to focus for five more minutes, okay?" Cody asked.
"Yeah," Conley said, nodding her head.
"Okay," Cody said. She didn't move from her spot as she continued on with the plan. "Can you relay the directions in the vent for me?"
The girl remained silent for a moment, and Cody almost thought that she couldn't remember, but before she could open her mouth to reply, Conley said, "Take the first left. Fourth right. All the way down and then up and out."
Cody smiled a little. "That's my girl," she said. "Once you're out and you know the coast is clear, I need you to make your way to Happy Harbor, Rhode Island. Carson and Elliot going to be staying there with a friend of mine, we've already talked about it."
"Where am I meeting them?" Conley asked.
"There's this little place, Alimentation Meilleures Villes. The friend I was talking about, Mark, works there. That's where you'll be meeting up and from there. Once you meet up with him, he's going to take the two of you to New York City."
"Why not just have us meet there?" Conley asked.
"That why you guys are kept on the move," Cody answered. "Once in New York, I think Carson's going to talk to Wendy Wright and try to take over Conwell Enterprise. But that's what he's doing. What you're to do is go to," Cody picked a sticky note and a pen off of the desk and scribbled down something, "this place. There's an old broken photo booth. I want you to go inside it and say," she scribbled again, "'Override H-0-J, Mount Justice, Priority Red! Authorization, Phoenix. New Designation, Omega. Initiate Erasing Procedure 2-9-A.'" Cody handed the girl the note and Conley put it in her pocket.
"Don't lose that," Lucas said. "That's one of the most important things."
Conley looked down at the paper and read it over. "What does 'New Designation, Omega' mean?" she asked.
"Well, we're calling you Project-Omega," Lucas said. "We're making sure you're the last person to be taken for this. Hence, Omega. Anything after that, I'm out of the dark."
"I needed to put in a name for the zeta-tubes, for the overriding sequence. Omega's just the first thing I thought of. You can come up with better superhero name after if you want. This is just to get you to the Cave."
"And where's the 'Cave?'"
"It's Mount Justice, where the Team operates out of," Cody answered.
The woman walked over to a desk in the far corner, where she had been standing earlier during their meeting. She used a key to open one of the drawers and then pulled out a little flash drive. Cody walked back over to Conley and held out the little device to her, waiting for her to take it. Once she did, Cody continued on with her instructions.
"You're going to be stirring up a lot of commotion, showing up there. Once you're through the zeta-tube, walk out slowly with your hands up. Tell them you don't mean them any harm, that you're their to help. You know, anything so they don't attack you."
"Anything except mention Cody," Lucas added.
"Exactly," Cody agreed.
"Why?" Conley asked.
"Because they think I'm dead and I don't want them to come looking for me," Cody explained.
"But they could get you out, right? Don't you think they'd want to know you're alive?" Conley asked.
"Yes, but right now, that's not what they need. They need this information more than knowing I'm alive. I can't let these past few years go to waste."
"So, what after that?"
"You're going to tell them I sent you," Lucas said. "Tell them I knew Phoenix and that there's information on Master and the assassins on the flash drive. If they don't believe you, tell them to look for themselves."
"So I can drop Cody's name then?"
"It's complicated," Cody said. "Just do it that way and you'll be just fine."
"Is that it?" Conley asked.
"That's it," Cody said. "Everything after that has to be planned out by their side. If it goes according to plan, they'll take you in and make you a member of the team. From there you'll go on missions and I'll hand off information to you."
"How long is that going to go on for?" Conley asked. "I mean, I don't care how long it takes, I'm in this for the long haul, but you're going to be stuck here with these people."
"As long as it take until we manage to get every since one of the people here, excluding Lucas, into prison," Cody said.
"And you're okay with that?" Conley asked.
No, she thought. I just want to go home. She wasn't going to say that though. Instead, Cody said, "I have to be."
"That's it?" Conley asked.
"That's it," Cody nodded.
"Okay," she said. "We can do this. I can do this."
"You can do this," Cody said. "It's not too hard."
"Oh, no, of course it isn't. It's not like I have a tight time frame in which it all has to be done, while I try and hide from assassins, then try to convince super-powered people that I'm not actually breaking into their secret HQ, and that I'm on their side with valuable information from a scientist on the bad side, while in truth I'm lying about who's giving them the information."
"Right, you'll be fine," Lucas said.
"Come on, I've got to get you back downstairs," Cody said.
Conley hopped off the exam table walked over to the door with Conley. Cody had a hold of the young girl's arm once more after she unlocked the door. They headed back downstairs and into the chamber. Cody made sure Conley was paying close attention to the path they were talking. Once back there, Cody put Conley back in the cell.
Cody turned away from her before Conley even had a chance to turn around and look at her. She couldn't make it look as if there was something up, just like when she had gone down there to retrieve her.
She had about an hour or so until the plan was put into place. At least she had that time to herself.