"Here we are. Curden Cay Station." Andrew says from the driver seat.
"Wish me luck." I reply.
"Hey, Carter." I turn around to face the black truck."Get out safe, alright."
"Can do. Hey, I'm trusting you to be there when the riots start, OK?" I reply.
"Wouldn't miss it for the world." he says, shifting his truck into drive. He departs, spraying snow behind him as he leaves.
"Should'ave brought a bigger coat." I say, rubbing my arms. Turning around, I see it: Curden Cay. The large concrete structure towers above the surrounding snow covered land. I sift through my backpack and check off all my supplies. Making my way up to the outer wall, I glance at the watch on my wrist.
"Four hours left. Better hurry."
-Meanwhile-
A lone DUP agent walks the halls of Curdun Cay. He passes two others, exchanging a brief nod. He casually enters an office and sets his rifle on the desk, sitting himself in the chair. He looks past the monitor for a moment before logging into the database. He goes to work arranging a deployment of five hundred troops to L.A. for a supposed Conduit uprising. He then increases his clearance level 5, as high as Augustine, next he disables the recording of the cameras watching the main entrance. Finally, he stations the next guard shift to have minimum possible security in "the Vault," a place only Augustine and her highest ranked soldiers are allowed.
-Three hours, fifteen minutes later-
The loud sound of metal on concrete echos through the walls.
"Oh no, not now! I'm not ready!" I yell, intertwining the ends of the wires. I quickly and clumsily use electrical tape to fix the rest of the explosives to the wall. I step back to inspect my rigging as the sound of metal on concrete blares again. The three gates are opening, one at a time. I don't have long now. I quickly run out in front of the doors about thirty feet and set up two metal cylinders on either side of the road and duck into the bushes farther off. Pulling the little remote from my front pocket, I punch in the numbers 46217-37, and faint green lights glow from the bottom of the cylinders before changing to blue.
The final door slides up and out rolls a convoy of D.U.P. troops. APCs, Semis, Mobile Command Units, and dozens more vehicles roll out of the tunnel and between the cylinders. A faint blue flash falls upon each of the vehicles as they pass between. "Ha, that was easy. No more radio communication means they won't be back to help. I have got to stop talking to myself." I say as the 200 or so vehicles pass between the cylinders.
-Inside Curdun Cay-
"I got this here."
"Shift over already? Oh, well. Have a good night." the agent standing by the entrance replies.
"Yeah, you too." he waits for the agent to leave before whistling casually three times. I peak around the corner where the gait begins its slow and painstaking descent. the agent nods his head and I sprint down the large corridor, closing the three-hundred foot distance in a matter of seconds. "Good work." I say.
"You got the money?" he says, already getting to the point.
"If you got what I want." I reply, getting serious, too. He hesitates for a moment.
"Come with me." I follow him down a series of corridors, most of which are empty. Until we come to a storage facility. He starts looking through shelves and bins.
"So, how many DUP are left?" I ask.
"About 130 or so." he replies.
"You can maintain a prison of three-hundred superhumans with only a hundred and thirty guards?" I contradict.
"No." he says, shoving a bin into my hands."But don't tell them that."
"Not yet, you mean?"
"Hell, what should I care. Just wait till I'm gone if you do. With the money you owe me, I won't need a check from Augustine." he replies. I open the bin to find a yellow windbreaker with the words D.U.P. Trainee on the back, a gray t-shirt with the DUP logo on it, black cargo pants wit down the side of the leg, and black and yellow boots. "Put those on." he says, turning his back. Once I've changed, leaving my clothes and backpack in the bin and the explosive detonator in my pocket, we depart. I carry the bin in my hands past several guards as we enter a more populated part of the prison.
"What was your name again? I was never told." I ask once we are alone.
"My name isn't important. Just refer to me as Sergeant. You are a recruit, after all." he says, smirking. The first emotion he's shown since I met him. "Why'd you join?"
"I was on a date with my girlfriend. We lived in Chattanooga, Tennessee. You've heard of that incident right?" he replies.
"The wood Conduit, sure, sure." "Well it was during that incident, we turned a street corner and ran into a DUP finger scanner. We didn't think anything of it, we just thought we'd pass on through and get to the restaurant. Well no, we both ended up in that cage. Turns out she had been a "fog" Conduit all along; she just hid it." he explains.
"Fog Conduit? What's that? And how'd you end up in the cage if she was a Conduit?" I interrupt.
"God, you ask a lot of questions. First of all, she basically can control any sort of damp or thick air. Like mist or steam or anything of that nature." he says. "And before you ask, no, not smoke like Rowe. It has to be moist. Anyway, I had the Conduit gene, too. They offered me deal, get locked up here, or get infused with concrete powers and work for the DUP. The only cost was that I'd never know my natural power. And that Victoria is locked up in here, but that was inevitable."
"Do you regret it at all?" I ask.
"What?"
"Joining even though your girlfriend is in here."
"No. She was going here either way. I basically had a choice: be free, or not." he explains.
"Easy enough choice. Is this it?" I ask as we approach a large metal door.
"Yeah." he says. He walks up and slides a card into a slot by the door, and a beep sounds. Four metallic clicks are followed by metal on concrete grinding. Sergeant grabs a huge lever on the door and rotates it until the door slides open with a painstaking pull. "Gotta love that Conduit strength, huh?" I say. He ignores me and enters the vault. "Take what you want and let's bail." he says. I enter the room as well. It's about fifteen by fifteen feet and eight feet tall. On the back wall are three glass cases. Two are cubes about a foot wide and the last is a rectangular prism about three and a half feet by six inches by one foot. I quickly grab all three and put them in the bin with my bag and clothes and stuff in some rolls of paper that were sitting in a basket in the corner. "Have you got what you came for?" Sergeant asks.
"Yeah. I think while I'm here I'll free all the Conduits and then ditch." I say, casually.
"Oh, and how do you intend to do that?" he asks.
"There aren't enough guards to contain the prison, remember?" I say. He smirks.
-Thirty minutes later-
"This wasn't my best idea!" I yell.
"Damn straight! I thought you were supposed to be some kind of genius?!" Sergeant replies. "Don't you have any backup plans?!" We are in the middle of a huge battle between the DUP and a horde of about twenty Conduits. Sergeant and I thought ahead, of course, and changed into civilian clothes.
"Oh yeah, that's right!" I yell as Sergeant fires his rifle over the cover. My hands start to shake as I hold the detonator up to show Sergeant. He nods, I'm not even sure if he really understood what it was because he looked away immediately to shoot again. I hold down one button and a red light blinks a few times before turning green. I then press a red button and the light changes to blue before turning off. A loud explosion echos throughout the hall and a massive cloud of dust comes barreling through the corridor. Once the shaking and noise stops, the Conduits and I open our eyes to complete blackness, as the explosion knocked out the lights.
"Son of a..." someone says. Suddenly, a bright light shines from the crowd. Everyone steps back to reveal a woman of maybe twenty with some kind of light emanating from her arms. "The explosion should have put a hole in the South wall near the entrance. Can you get us there?" I ask Sergeant. He nods.
"You, get up here." He says, pointing to the woman. She walks up and stands between us. While Sergeant explains everything to the Conduits, I glance over my shoulder and notice that the DUP are gone. They weren't killed in the blast, or there would be more bodies. "Is that clear?" Sergeant says, snapping me out of my thought.
"Also, I believe the DUP have retreated, so be ready for anything." I add on.
We set out down the hall, guided by Sergeant and the light of the Conduit. I fall back to the middle of the group, the safest place for a non-Conduit with a bin full of the most valuable items on Earth. Another Conduit- this one a man of about thirty- falls into step with me.
"You ain't a Conduit, so what in the hell are you doing here?" he asks.
"I organized this whole thing." I reply.
"Are you in the CRA?"
"Nah. Just wanted a fun weekend." I say, getting an eye roll in response.
"Seriously though, why would you want to get in the middle of this?" he persists.
"I really just wanted to get what's in this bin." I answer.
"What is?"
"That's not important. Anyway, why are you in here?"
"Damn DUP thought I had powers before I ever did. They showed up about a year after I came in." he explains.
"Anybody here changed by the Beast?" I ask. This seems to strike his interest.
"As a matter of fact, them two, over there." he says, pointing. I see two young teenagers, both about fourteen, one a boy and one a girl. They both stand the same height and have the same shade of red hair. "They're twins. The girl's notorious for going on a rampage and destroying what was left of the city the Beast came through, and he was known for stopping her, but they're good, now."
"What exactly do you mean by good?" I ask.
"They don't hate eachother anymore. And I doubt she fly off the handle again. Truth be told, I think she was trying to fight the Beast and got a little out of hand."
"This is it." Sergeant says. We have arrived at the hole." The buses are out front." He continues to explain the situation while I slip out the hole. I run out into the snow and into the forest until I reach Andrew and I's predetermined spot. I open the door to the black truck and slide the bin in.
"Here," he says, holding out a shoe box,"Don't forget this." I grab it and run back to the prison, grabbing Sergeant's arm as he's about to board a bus. I hand him the shoe box with my other hand and he takes it. After cracking it open to check the contents, he nods and slips it under the driver's seat. I return to the truck to find Andrew examining the glass cases.
"I can't believe you got these." he says.
"I know. The RFI, Ray Sphere, and The Amp." I say, triumphantly.
"I could have sworn the Ray Sphere was destroyed, though?"
"Yeah, it was. That's was really bugs me, that if they can recreate this than what exactly are they capable of?"
"Yeah. And is this the real Amp, too? I thought it was at the MacGrath National Memorial." he says.
"It's real, trust me. They stole it. And the RFI- since it was 'A Conduit related issue' the DUP took custody of it." I explain.
"Well, if a new Beast ever arises, we'll be able to take him down. At a cost." Andrew says.
"As long as the Ray Sphere doesn't break, we shouldn't have a problem." I say.
-3 Months later-
We decided to hid the Ray Sphere underground, after welding steel rods between the halves so that they could never come together again. As for the RFI, we kept it in the back of a self storage facility in Washington D.C. If need be, we can call the government and direct them on how to use it. If they listen that is. The Amp, well, we returned that to it's rightful place at the memorial.
As for Sergeant, or Eric as I now know, he found Victoria on a bus and they moved back to Chattanooga. They've gotten engaged now and are using the money I gave him to fund it and buy a house. As for where I got that money, if you're wondering, it was raised by the CRA. The deal was that I'd free the Conduits while I got the devices. I'm no activist. I just wanted to prevent as many deaths as possible, and if that meant stealing one of the most dangerous items on Earth, so be it.
A wise man once said that War has no Winners, just Survivors. And when you possess a device that can kill thousands of people in an instant, and thousands more with a charge, it becomes easy to see what that means. If you can turn yourself into a superhuman at such a cost, you better be willing to work to pay off that debt. Save ten lives for every one you've taken. Cole knew what that meant. So did Delsin. If the Conduits and humans are to live together, we will have to follow in their footsteps.