Miss Martian landed the bio ship, hidden in the numerous amounts of the rocky landscape. There was a stream nearby, no doubt leading back into the ocean.
Robin had taken the time to take a short power nap.
"Team, are we all ready?" Aqualad asked as he got up from his seat.
Everyone nodded.
"We need to be extremely quiet. Get in and get out. Robin will hack their system to obtain the information. Communication via the mind link, are we clear?" he glared at Artemis and Wally. "Do. Not. Argue. The faster and more quiet we are, the sooner we can go home with no complications. If we spot anything out of the ordinary and if you happen to spot the missing intern, Karen, explain the situation before diving in." They all nodded. "Robin, will you please pull up the map of the facility?" Aqualad asked.
"Awesome, so at the moment we're here," Robin showed them a map from his holographic computer on his wrist. The map showed them all in one spot with their appropriate insignia. KF with his lightning bolt, Artemis with her arrow, Aqualad with his A, Super boy with the famous S, Robin with his R, and Miss Martian with a red X that was connected to the bottom. There was also an outline of the ship, indicating her bioship. "Pretty sure we all know who is who. Anyways, the red area indicates where we are not to go in, so avoid those areas. Blue dots are the people in the building. The green areas are the places that should be fine, but still be on lookout. Tread carefully in orange. Be extremely quiet in purple. The white area is where I will be for the info." Robin showed them the white area that had two red areas nearby.
Aqualad nodded. "Miss Martian will be with Kid Flash."
"What! He'll just flirt the entire time!" Artemis pointed out.
"The two of them can cover ground on the outside of the facility and observe the labs that are being done outside without being spotted. Artemis, you will be with Superboy. He is close range and you are far range, you can watch each other's back easily. Both of you will observe on the inside. I shall be with Robin."
"There's an obvious problem with the plan. How are we supposed to memorize that map?" KF said.
"Ah, been waiting for someone to point that out." Robin grinned. He reached behind his belt and grabbed something. It looked like a large thick pen with a clear screen attached to it, "These are prototypes that batman have been working on, so today we are testing them out." He handed one to Artemis, and the other one to KF. "KF, the layout on yours is different, but color areas remain the same. Miss M, I'm sure you'll be fine. You'll be in the air, so you'll have the entire view of the facility. Contact KF if you need coordinates." Robin said, sighing in exhaustion. "Everybody got that?" he asked. Everyone simply stared at the boy, taking note of the small act that Robin normally didn't do. "C'mon let's get going, I kinda wanna finish this up soon." He said and sent the holo screen away.
Aqualad nodded. "I agree. Let us go."
Some time passed as Miss Martian dropped the others off at the designated dropping spot. She had taken the liberty to quietly bring Superboy down so his usual landing style would give them away immediately. She had landed her bio ship hidden in some rock formations for the time being and made her way up into the sky as Kid Flash started zipping around the area. Kid Flash and Robin had taken the time and updated his googles, so the fact that he can zoom in on them and other stuff was darn useful.
"Nope, nope, nothing suspicious, Oh, he was so not experimenting. Gross. Creepy guy in long pony tail working on suspicious gun. Does this thing have a camera?" Wally played with the thing. He eventually found it after much button pressing. "Sweet, got the guy working on said suspicious gun. Hot babe with platinum blonde braid with him writing on clipboard. Got it, next, next, next, Creepy Guy number two working on what it looks like inhibitor collars." Kid Flash went on and on.
"Wally!" Everyone mentally shouted. The speedster winced.
"Oops, sorry guys." He apologized.
"KF, I see some guards coming up your way, be careful!" Miss Martian told him.
"Thanks sugar, hey! How about me and you plus a movie…"
"Really? We've been here for about thirty minutes and you hit on her already?" Artemis said.
"We'll excuse me for asking."
"No thanks Wally, I appreciate the thought, but it's going to be late by the time we're finished."
"I'll take a rain check then." He smirked.
Meanwhile, Artemis and Superboy observed very carefully. They stuck to the large support beams from top, well hidden in the shadows. Both young heroes were positioned on the support beams, Superboy on one beam and Artemis across from him.
"I feel as if I'm going to break these beams." Superboy commented, feeling uneasy walking around. Something from the corner of his eye caught his attention. He tilted his head. He got Artemis' attention and pointed down.
"Well big guy, I'd lay off those pies if I were you." Kid Flash commented.
The archer squinted her eyes. She searched through the device and found a camera and zoomed in on it. Artemis signed to Superboy. "A bug?"
Superboy shook his head. He signed back to her. "No need to worry then."
"Whoa, wait! It's the girl!" her eyes widened. "It's the missing intern!"
"Well that was quick." "That's great!" Kid Flash and Megan said at the same time.
"What is her status?" Aqualad asked.
"Well for one thing they shrunk her down to the size of a bug." Artemis said. "She's inside some sort of tube." Artemis bit her lip.
"Try not to compromise your positions and strike at the right opportunity." Aqualad said.
On the other side of the facility, Robin and Aqualad ran through the halls discreetly, taking moments to record their findings and snapping pictures. They finally made it to the door that lead into the room they needed to get into. Robin pointed at the door. Aqualad nodded. Robin held up ten fingers, signaling he would be done in ten minutes. Aqualad shook his head and held up five, making Robin smirk.
"Challenge accepted." Robin cackled. He hoped the dizziness won't strike again. They were almost done. Last they needed was a teammate down.
They both walked into the room carefully, not tripping any censors. Robin took his jack and plugged it into the computer. The boy then began hacking and typing away for the information they came for.
"Guys!" Wally shouted. Robin winced.
"Yell any louder will ya, loudmouth?" Artemis griped. "You almost made Superboy here lose his balance."
"This whole facility is experimenting on animals! All I'm seeing out here are new models for inhibitor collars and this huge freaky gun thing that does not look friendly."
"I can sense a great amount of pain and sadness. So much pain and confusion." Miss Martian said sullenly.
"It gets worse from the information I'm looking at." Robin said, or rather huffed out. His head starting to ache from the conversation they were having. "Uh-oh."
"Robin?" Aqualad asked.
"This place is funded by Cadmus!" Robin's eyes widened, not liking where this is going.
"What?" Superboy said.
"Yeah, we got another problem here." Robin said.
"What's going on?" Miss Martian asked, not liking what she'shearing.
"Apparently they have a secret project they have been working on." Aqualad commented.
"Two to be more precise." Robin added.
"Don't tell me-" Kid Flash started before being cut off by Robin.
"First one is Project Changeling." Robin said grimly.
"We can't just leave knowing Cadmus has two more project going on." Artemis said. She glanced down and saw some files on the table scattered about she zoomed in on them. "I found some files on the table that says Project Wasp."
"From what I'm reading, it says that project changeling was deemed unstable, but there's no termination set on the project." Robin said.
"Unstable or not, we aren't leaving anyone behind." Superboy said with determination.
"For them to successfully create two projects in a small amount of time that Marie's team was taken, it seems they've been doing this for a while. Who knows how many others suffered because of these people?" Miss Martian said.
"Artemis, copy the files and destroy that physical copy on the table." Robin said. "I already downloaded everything and wiping their drives clean."
"Won't that, you know, give us away?" Kid Flash said. "I thought we were supposed to be covert here."
"That's before we found out this is Cadmus." Artemis pointed out.
Aqualad elbowed Robin, grabbing his attention. He turned and saw Aqualad press a button. Part of the wall lifted up into the ceiling, revealing a large glass window that displayed what they were doing. Several exotic animals with collars, their face in pain. The room was fairly large, filled with various amounts of animals that one person can possibly think of. Their eyes set on a boy in the middle of the room, strapped to a bed that was angled. Boxer briefs was the only clothing the boy had on. The boy was trembling, sweating profusely.
Oh god...was that-
"Robin, we have company." Aqualad said before getting into a defensive position. He brought a hand to the hilt of one of his water-bearers.
The boy turned around, glaring at the sudden figure that appeared out of nowhere. Camouflage? If this guy had that kind of tech, then that meant trouble for the others. Robin gritted his teeth and continued typing away, downloading the contents and quickly sending a virus to wipe the entire data. He unplugged his jack and hit a few more buttons and sent the information away to Batman. He twirled around, holo screen whizzing away and got into position, his hand on the pocket where it held his batarangs.
If this guy had camo tech, and Robin was unable to detect it, would that mean other potential enemies were in the room as well, watching them the entire time? He's pretty sure the glare he gave showed how vexed he was at the moment with everything. All he wanted was some sleep. He hoped he had enough in him for a fight.
It always confuses me on which name to refer them to during the story, even during Megan's Mind Link. So i decided to go with their hero names during mission and other than that, their real names would be used (excluding Dick). Except during their mind link sometimes.
I thought it be interesting for the team to learn and use different methods of communication in the case of radio silence and they were to split up into teams. Too many people talking all at once would be distracting. You don't know if you are referring to the team or yourself or to your teammate. Idk, can the mind link work that way too?