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The League stood there what seemed like ages. No one had an idea of what to say. The silence was finally broken by Tom.
"Well, we better get started."
"Indeed," Nemo responded while stroking his beard in a thoughtful manner. "We must discover whoever it is that broke into this establishment quickly."
"You don't suppose…" Skinner started before trailing off. They all knew what he meant.
"No, he was dead, I'm sure of it," Jekyll sparked. "The bullet went straight into his brain."
"There must be some explanation for all this," Mina said. "Since when are well armed men 'torn through like tissue paper.'"
"'…Beaten up by nothing,'" Skinner muttered.
"We won't get anywhere if we just stand around," prompted Tom.
"He's right," Nemo agreed. "We need a plan."
"I could talk to the guards that survived," Jekyll suggested, "They may have seen something that can help."
"I'll go poking around and find out if there's anything else we should know," piped in Skinner as he removed his hat.
"The rest of us should look around the bomb sites," Mina added.
"Then it's settled," Nemo concluded. "We'll meet back here in one hour."
Nemo was being lead down a hall by one of the workers. When the man stopped, they were in front of where a large door used to be.
"This is where you wanted to go," the man said, "the engineering room."
The door had obviously been blown off by the explosion. The room inside looked even worse than the file room. Parts of the walls were completely gone. Everything was burnt. Corpses of machinery could be seen throughout the room. They were so mangled that it was hard to tell what they used to be.
Nemo stood in the center of the room. As he looked around, he couldn't help but feel a certain sadness. Walking forward slightly, a small light hit his eye. Upon investigation, Nemo discovered the light had come from a sheet of metal plate with wires attached to it that was on its own.
"Fascinating," Nemo said as he picked up the plate. On the other side of it was an insignia of a sun. Looking the plate over, he wondered if the others were having any luck.
Meanwhile, Mina picked up a similar metal plate. Standing up, she looked around the room again. The room had formerly been a greenhouse. The glass had been shattered from the ceiling and walls. The sun's rays couldn't make the mood any happier, though they were trying. The only things inside were ash from the plants.
"This used to be my favorite room." Mina heard a voice say behind her. Turning around, she saw it was Roselinda. Roselinda had a lost expression on her face, as though she was in another place. "The trees here would go all the way past the ceiling"
"What was worked on in here?" Mina inquired. "Was there any particular plant being grown?"
"All of our plants were grown in here," explained Roselinda, "They were mostly hybrids."
"What plant was growing here?" Mina asked, motioning toward where she had picked up the metal plate.
"A few experimental plants, from more nutritious fruits to those with more," Roselinda stopped for a moment to find the right word, "military purposes."
"Really, explain."
"I'm afraid that's classified," Roselinda said. "If you'll excuse me, there are other places I have to be."
As Roselinda left, Mina looked back at where she had found the plate. After thinking for a while, she began wonder if the rest of the team had found anything.
Tom had no idea what he was looking at. As he examined the thing more, he tapped on the glass containing it. As Tom looked around the room, he could see many containers like the one. The glass was obviously been very strong. The explosion had vaporized everything else in the room, yet the glass had only cracked. That didn't keep the creatures, as he assumed they were, from being cooked alive.
"This is where we did all of our biological research," his guide explained. "Always was some creepy stuff in here."
"Really?" Tom replied in a half sarcastic tone. He couldn't believe these things could be any weirder than they were now.
"Yeap, ya see they always kept this place half dark so you couldn't see what they were doing," the man explained. "Didn't keep you from hearing the…whatever-they-weres."
As Tom walked over to examine something in one of the other containers, he heard something in the corner of the room. Looking to see if his guide was watching, Tom walked over.
"Skinner, is that you?"
"Who else did you expect?" a voice joked in reply.
"What are you doing here?"
"I thought you'd like to hear what I just heard." Skinner lowered his voice. "Some workers were talking; seemed ta think that it was an inside job."
"People tend to say things at times like this," Tom replied, "but we'll have to see what the others have to say before we decide how useful it is."
"If that's all the thanks I get, guess I won't show you this!"
The American found himself whapped in the nose by a burnt piece of paper. Wondering how Skinner had hidden anything without his clothes on, Tom snatched the parchment out of the seemingly empty air.
"Quit that! What is this anyway?"
"I think it's a letter. Can't tell ya what it says, too scorched."
"I'll tell ya, it was crazy," one of the guards said.
Jekyll had been talking to two of the survivors for half an hour now under the guise that he was making sure their wounds were doing fine. The guards had been severely hurt. One had lost half an arm while the other had had his head busted open. Jekyll still hadn't learned much about what had happened.
"What else do you remember?" Jekyll asked as he put a gauze onto one of the men's heads.
"There was this one time where I walked into the room and wahoom," the man made a fist and quickly moved it toward his stomach "You remember, Bert?"
"Yeah, out of nowhere" Bert added, "literally."
"Finally," Jekyll muttered.
"What's that?"
"Oh, uh, the bleeding has stopped," Jekyll staggered. "Go on."
"Well, like Lou here said, we entered this one room to do a checkup…"
"There was nothin' there," Lou interrupted.
"Right, when suddenly," Bert continued, "I get this blow to my stomach.
"I see him fall and I start toward him when I get hit at my groin."
Jekyll tried to put as much as he could into his memory as he began to wrap Lou's head. Even though Jekyll had done this many times, he nearly dropped the bandage roll when he heard what was said next.
"Then that big thing walked in, easily twice your height," Lou emphasized.
"I see it and pick up my gun," Bert chimed in. "He sees me, grabs my arm and… well…"
Jekyll could tell what was meant without Bert gesturing towards his arm stub.
"By this time I had recovered, so I got a good distance away, aimed my gun at, then," Lou pointed at his head dramatically, "black out."
"Well, it looks like that should do it," Jekyll stated as he finished putting the bandage in place.
"Thanks, Doc," Lou exclaimed.
Jekyll figured that he had learned everything he could. It was time for him to start heading back anyway. While he gathered up his medical supplies, the guards continued to talk.
"Wow, the doc did a great job on your head," Bert told Lou.
"Great, I'd hate to get a scar like that thing had," Lou replied, tracing his finger from his forehead, passed his nose, and ending at the outside corner of his right eye.
"There's no way you would get a scar like that," Bert laughed, "It was glowing white."
Jekyll took on last look back toward the guards before leaving the room. He pondered about what he had heard as he walked down toward the file room.
The rest of the League was talking about what they had found out when Nemo walked into the file room. Everyone looked as though they had just arrived a little while ago except for Skinner, who was as fully dressed as he was when the League had first entered the room.
"Glowing white," Skinner was saying, "that ain't normal."
"Well, I think I found a way to identify our intruders," Nemo interjected, passing the metal plate he had found toward his team mates.
"I found something similar in the room I was in," Mina said as she took out her plate.
"As I thought," Nemo concluded, "these were part of the bombs."
"So what is the picture for?" Tom asked.
"I believe it is an insignia for the maker."
"Why would someone put their mark on a bomb?" Jekyll inquired.
"Overlooked it, didn't care, pride…" Skinner started to ramble off.
"We get it Skinner," Mina interrupted.
"Whatever the reason," Tom said, "it's our only clue."
"Well, that and this letter," Skinner corrected. The invisible man pulled the parchment out of his pocket.
"Let me have a look," Nemo insisted as he takes the paper. "I believe I can make out the word port. I may have a method back at the ship to figure out the rest."
"Looks like we have our destination," Tom declared.
Next chapter is long; it's where the action starts, so that should make up for it. Please review.