Chapter 34
Scrambled Priorities

Monday 0750.
Four months and three weeks after F.B.

"Are you sure the entrance is on the coast? We didn't see anything on our first pass! Maybe if we go higher …."

"Any higher and we'll show up on their screens. No, we have to look closer." Coco adjusted the settings on her binoculars and continued staring out the bullhead's opened side hatch. The airship was flying so low over the coastal waters that waves sent the occasional spray to the Colonel's feet.

Hacks, who was standing next to Coco, tilted her head away from her rifle sights to send a wary look at her commanding officer. "I'm sure everything is fine, Boss. Maybe they really are too deep for the radio equipment to …."

"No." Coco did not even look up from her binoculars to stop Hacks from finishing that sentence. "Normal radio equipment, sure. But I refuse to believe that Gadget's frequency enhancers just stopped working barely half an hour into a mission. Something is wrong."

Something is definitely wrong. Coco kept scanning the cliffside with her eyes, but her mind went inside, listening, trying to feel … something. But just like the last half hour, it came up empty. If there was an equipment failure, then Fox would have reached out by now. He doesn't need fancy equipment to keep in touch. But, then again, the rest of the squad doesn't know that.

"Besides, there has to be a way in. The main entrance was sealed, and these vents needed to lead somewhere. A base like that isn't sustained on blind fanaticism alone. There has to be a way in for supplies."

"It still could be topside, though." Brush's voice rang through the ship's intercom. "That forest could hide an elevator hatch or something."

"We've already ruled that out, Brush. Not enough open spaces. You can't plant trees on moving hatches." Hacks was offhandedly reciting the squad's earlier discussion when they contemplated leaving their cover to search for an entrance.

"Yeah, I know, but what if they did?"

"How? Don't tell me you think they used little pots for trees!"

"Well, not like plant pots, but like … I dunno, growing beds?"

"That hatch would still be moving, Brush. Plus, do you have any idea how deep a forest tree's roots go? Don't be ridiculous."

"Well, excuse me for trying to find the solution, Hacks! We would have found it by now if what they did was obvious. Hmm, what about dummy trees? Like paper dummies? They could have glued them to the hatch and …."

Coco was not listening anymore. She let out a frustrated sigh and tried to focus her mind. The Fang were indeed no idiots, but constructing advanced elevator systems was decidedly out of the realm of feasibility. Annoyed, she stopped looking out the side hatch and turned around, pacing through the aircraft. While her brain was trying to put the pieces together, her eyes wandered through the ship until it rested on a slightly opened storage cabinet door. Behind it, she saw an oxygen bottle and part of a diving mask. Absentmindedly she went to the cabinet and closed the door … just to abruptly open it again.

"… there is no way they use a rocket, Brush! I don't care how much smaller the hatch would have to …."

"Brush." Coco cut firmly into the conversation. "Is a bullhead air-tight enough to go underwater?"

Monday 0715.
Four months and three weeks after F.B.

Fox stifled a frustrated grunt as he struggled to keep up with Blake. Even at his best, he was clearly not as agile as the cat faunus, and his long arm blades didn't help. In hindsight, he should have probably left his weapons at the bullhead and switched to more stealth-friendly armament. Then again, nobody told me I'd be crawling through vents for half an hour.

The two hunters had silently made their way deeper and deeper into the ventilation system. Blake led the way with her night vision, almost effortlessly moving through the tight space. So far, the path was pretty straightforward; slightly angled slope, fan, sharp turn, downward shaft, repeat with Fox dropping the occasional signal booster behind them whenever the strength of the radio connection threatened to go below 50 percent. Unfortunately, it was only a matter of time before it got more complicated.

Blake stopped before him, her head turning from left to right, hesitating. "Crossroads," Blake's voiced in a whisper, not looking behind herself.

"Split up?" Instead of an answer, Blake just started turning right, which left Fox with the left option after a quick extension of his aura to orientate himself. After rolling his eyes for good measure and pointless theatricals, Fox dropped another signal booster and continued on his path for a few minutes until he reached a ventilation grille pointing downwards. He stopped and carefully reached out with his aura, trying to get a sense of what was below him.

It was a larger room, though not entirely open. There were a lot of smaller … office cubicles? No, those were usually not sealed on the top. Cells maybe? He focused a bit harder, and now he could clearly make out shapes like plain beds and toilets. Some beds even had body-like forms on them. Though, disturbingly, some of these shapes were on the ground, none were moving, and neither had any aura.

"Ventilation fan on my side. What you got?" Blake silently appeared behind him. He carefully moved over the grille to give her a better look.

"Seems like prison cells. Bunch of dead bodies, though."

There was no immediate answer from Blake. A few heartbeats passed until she gave him a better description.

"No prison. Those are lab cells. All the walls are made of glass. Lots of medical equipment. More like an isolation ward."

That last confused Fox. "Why would the Fang have something like that? They don't strike me as the type who needs a hospital ward."

Another pause from Blake. "Looks more like medical experiments."

Fox's head snapped up. "You telling me they experiment on humans now?"

Another long Pause. "Yeah … humans." That caused Fox to raise an eyebrow. Something seemed off with that statement. But before he could probe deeper, Blake pushed herself past him, continuing the descent through the vents.

"We better call that one in. We're overdue anyway." Fox raised his hand to his earpiece, but he only got static instead of a clear signal. Irritated, he tapped his scroll to get a status report. A robotic voice confirmed his suspicion. "Signal strength zero percent."

"Lucky I got nothing but static on the com. How about you?"

"Same here. Did you forget those boosters of yours?"

"Negative, dropped one right at the crossroads."

"Seems to be malfunctioning then. Come on, let's press forward, Sly."

Fox hesitated. There's no way Gadget's boosters are malfunctioning. We tested them over far longer distances in far worse conditions. So what is going on here? Lucky seems to be acting weird too. Then again, maybe the Fang experimenting on humans doesn't fit in her self-righteous faunus worldview. Serves her right to be cut down a peck.

Fox resumed his crawl behind Blake. I could reach out to Coco … I don't really need the radio. We shouldn't be too far away for my semblance. Fox let out a deep breath, his mind reaching out, searching to establish a connection with his partner … before shaking his head and concentrating on moving forward. On second thought … it's not that important. We should probably gather more intel first.

The two continued for a while, coming across two more similar rooms before Blake stopped again. "Communications room. Seems empty."

Fox nodded as Blake started to open the ventilation grille, taking the grid from her as she managed to remove it. Placing the grid carefully behind him, he followed Blake and dropped silently into the communications room. Letting out a pleasant groan as he stretched his aching limbs, he scanned the room with his aura. Lots of screens and technical equipment, one door, no windows. Blake was already in front of the screens, working on the keyboard.

"Got access to the security footage. Sloppy of the Fang to keep their computers unprotected." She kept on rapidly typing for quite a while in silence until Fox got impatient.

"And? Got some camera feed we can use?"

"What? Oh, right." Blake suddenly seemed deeply distracted, and Fox did not like that one bit. Curse my blindness. I can't tell what she's really doing there. It's not looking at camera footage; I would bet on that.

"There. Got access to the cameras. Hmm, seems like a big warehouse. Half a dozen bullheads. Quite a few Fang soldiers around loading … something into the ships. I can't really make out what … hold on … there's another group coming in … no, it can't be …."

Fox took a step towards her until he was nearly beside the faunus. "What is it?"

"Perry …."

"Who is …."

"He is one of the higher Fang members here in Vale. We knew he oversaw the Fang activities during the Breach, but we haven't heard anything from him since. We thought he was dead. Hold on, I'm trying to get the audio channels working."

It took a few seconds before the audio system in the room came to life.

"…almost done loading the bullheads with the newest strain, Perry." That was clearly a female voice speaking.

"Good. What is the status in the city?" Fox made a mental note to file this deeper voice under 'Perry.'

"The scout team reports nearly all hospitals at full capacity and most medical supplies depleted. No replacements are coming in since we hit Junior's club."

"Gooood … my idiot brother didn't get himself killed for nothing then." A third voice, booming, very deep.

Perry spoke up again. "Terrible waste of faunus, though. But it got the job done and stopped Junior's operations. They died for the cause."

"Speaking of …". The female voice again. "Are we sure we want to release this new strain? The infection rate among faunus …."

"Is still below 10 percent. It's an acceptable price for a nearly perfect airborne infection rate and a much higher mortality rate in humans. Adam deemed the sacrifice as worth the effect. We'll lose some brothers and sisters, but we'll eradicate the humans in the city."

"What?" Fox could not believe what he was hearing. This was insanity. He had heard from Coco that the medical supplies were running low in the wake of a sickness wave, but to think this was by design? Preposterous!

"We'll honor the sacrifice of our fallen once we return to Adam. Is my ship ready?"

"Yes, Perry. However, it's the last in line. So you'd have to wait until the bullheads are off."

"Just as well. I had no intention of returning to Adam before confirming the release's success above the city. He'd have my head otherwise. We sacrificed too much to leave this success to chance."

Fox heard enough. "We need to get in there and stop these bullheads." He activated his weapons and started to reach out with his semblance to contact Coco. "We must prevent them from leaving until the others can react."

Before he could do anything else though, a telltale click of a gun's hammer being cocked froze him in his tracks. Without turning his head, he reached out with his aura. Beside him stood Blake, arm outstretched, and Gamble Shroud's pistol form aimed straight at his head.

"Mind telling me what you are doing, Blake?"

"Sorry, Fox. You are not disturbing them. Perry's traveling to Adam. And I intend to sneak onto that ship."