February 29, 1958
"We're all in position. Over."
Moira clicked off the radio and took a deep breath. She peered around a tree and looked down at the facility. It looked peaceful, almost as though nothing were about to happen. She would have assumed that it was just another day at a nuclear power plant if she didn't know about the heavily armed special forces units that were just about to move in.
Next to her Levine looked over the scene. His gun was drawn. Moira's gun was in its holster, although she doubted that either one of them were actually going to use their weapons. They were on as an advisory accessory only. It would be Christopher's people who would be doing the field work.
"Go in when you're ready Corsair," said Moira, "Over."
"Orders received. Over."
She clipped the radio on her belt and went back to their car. It was a standard issue, but thankfully it wasn't all that they had. There were a few other military vehicles there, designed to transport the prisoners they found. Levine followed her, looking nervously from the facility back to their position.
"So," Levine said, "this is our first stake-out."
"I guess you can call it that," Moira shrugged.
He nodded and looked back at the facility.
"Are you sure we shouldn't have told McCone about this first?" he asked.
"He's the one who said to move when we were ready," said Moira, "And if we're ready a few weeks early then our estimation, well, then we're just ahead of schedule. It makes us efficient, wouldn't you say?"
Levine didn't respond.
"Will you relax?" Moira said, "We're just here as a formality. We probably won't even end up using these."
She patted her gun. It made her feel uncomfortable to carry it. Guns in general had made her uncomfortable since she killed the man in her house. Sometimes she wished that, if she had to kill someone, it had been his partner instead of him. The man she'd killed had seemed to actually know something. The other was just a paid killer who didn't even know their contact. The other had been the brains of the operation.
Still, she felt awkward carrying it around. It was like she was inviting trouble. In training she'd learned it was better to have it and not need it then to need it and not have it. Moira supposed it was true. Yet, every time she held a gun she went back to that night in her living room, drawing and not knowing if she'd survive the next few seconds.
She shook her head, trying to rid herself of those thoughts.
"They'll call us in once the facility's cleared," she said, "After that we'll just get more data and see where that takes us. That's what we're here for, in theory at least."
Moira laughed.
"We're all about data apparently," she said, "Still, we may be able to link this to Stryker and Kelly if we find enough."
"Maybe," Levine said doubtfully, "Kelly we might find something on, but Stryker's a slippery son of a bitch."
"Oh really?" asked Moira.
"Yeah, I've seen him a few times around the office," he said, "He came in more before you joined up. A real hard-ass but he's smart. Kelly…I dunno. I get the feeling that he's all puffed up righteousness and arrogance but no real substance. He'd probably fold like a deck of cards if pushed."
"Good information to know," Moira said.
She saw a flash on the other side of the compound. They were moving in.
"Looks like this is it," Moira said.
Christopher moved through the halls. So far the people inside had yet to detect their presence. The schematics that the CIA agents provided had been good enough to know where the alarms were. They'd disconnected them before moving in quietly. So far there wasn't much to see, but he knew that they would run into something, and soon.
He'd promised his wife, Katherine, and Scott that he'd find Alex. It would take better people than the sadists who ran that place to make a liar out of him. He'd just have to tread carefully and see what was going on. At the end of the day he was going to have his son back, no matter what.
One of his men gestured with his hand. Christopher nodded and went down a side hall. There was a door at the end of it and he kept his gun trained on it. Two of his men flanked him and he gave another hand gesture. They nodded and Christopher took a few steps forward. Then, clenching his gun tightly, he kicked open the door.
The door opened up to a catwalk. Beneath him were a series of mesh cages that had been converted into cells. People from their teens to as old as thirty were inside, wearing red-brown jumpsuits. Some were restrained and others were simply hunched in corners, not even looking up. The air reeked of chemicals and the tables of jars and charts on the walls weren't promising.
Not many people were outside of cages. Anyone who was seemed to be on staff. There were a few soldiers, but only one man in a white coat. When the group walked by a young man whimpered and pulled himself further away into his cell. The man in the white coat smirked. Christopher made special note of him.
A soldier looked up and saw them.
"Under the authority of the Central Intelligence Agency and the United States Special Forces you are ordered to-" Christopher began.
A bullet cut him off. He hadn't expected any less. Christopher grinned grimly to himself. Now that they had were firing they were authorized to use deadly force. He returned fire, hitting two of the soldiers. His other men got the ones to the right and left of him. The man in the white coat made a run for the wall, where Christopher could only assume the alarm was. Taking careful aim he shot him in the leg, causing the man to collapse and scream in agony.
Other soldiers began to return fire, but more of Christopher's men came in from side doors. In a matter of minutes the floor was clear. Some soldiers had surrendered but more had chosen the hard way. Christopher thundered down the steps to the man in the white coat. He crouched by him and jerked him up by the collar.
"Now then," he said, "is this the only holding area?"
The man's eyes rolled around rapidly.
"You bastards took my son," Christopher snarled, "I'm not in the mood to be merciful. Now, is this the only holding area?"
"No," the man burbled, "There's another just a…just a little further down. It's where we…it's where we…"
"Where you what?" Christopher demanded.
"It's where we keep the young ones!"
Hardly knowing what he was doing Christopher smashed his fist into the man's face. Teeth flew out and the man howled.
"You call them what they are you son of a bitch. They're children. Do you hear that?" hissed Christopher, "Children!"
The man nodded frantically.
"Good," Christopher said, "Now, you're going to help my men open the doors and maybe, and it's a big maybe, you'll only get a life sentence."
He tossed the man to the floor and gestured to eight of his men. As a unit they moved down the rows to the back entrance. Eyes all colors of the rainbow stared at him, sometimes multiple ones. It was only when he looked at the eyes that he could repress his basic instincts. After all, no matter if those eyes were staring at him through fur or scales, they were unmistakenably human ones.
The second area had less soldiers but there was a remarkable increase in scientists. Charts were on walls and the cages were made of a lighter mesh. The room was also smaller and lacked a catwalk. As soon as they came in they were spotted and forced backwards through the doors. When the alarm was hit Christopher swore under his breath.
"Come on, let's get in before their buddies arrive," he said.
His men nodded. Christopher kicked in the door, sending a spray of bullets into the soldiers. A few of them were caught unawares, allowing them to get through the door. The rest of his men followed quickly, taking anyone down with a weapon. The scientists surrendered quickly, but they didn't have a lot of time to spend on them. Reinforcements would be coming.
A cell was open when they came in. Christopher quickly ushered the confused inhabitant out, instructing him to go to the back. The scientists were kicked in there, locking the door. The men who weren't rounding up the scientists kicked over a table to use as a barricade. By the time reinforcements came in, they were ready.
Christopher assumed that the guards for an operation where people were the commodity would be the usual mix of mercenaries and thugs. Instead he was surprised at the fact that the men who came in through the doors were just thugs. He couldn't believe that these were the people who had captured all of the people imprisoned in the facility. The children were understandable, but some of them had been full-fledged adults who were probably in control of their powers.
The vague idea that maybe the big guns just weren't in yet made his skin crawl. If they were in the facility though, they would have come for the alarm. So that meant that they were elsewhere, doing God only knew what. No matter, that was a battle for another time. At the moment they needed to clear the area.
After a few minutes they polished off the last of the place's goons and turned their attention towards the imprisoned children. The scientists were much more afraid than the one they had encountered in the first area and quickly activated the doors. Children stumbled out, looking scared and confused. Some were even younger than his son.
Christopher moved between them, hoping against hope that he'd see Alex. Maybe he'd been wrong. Maybe there was another place with his son. The charts on the walls taunted him, as did the many bandages around some of the children. He remembered that the CIA agents had mentioned dangerous experiments. He shuddered again, pressing on and muttering silent prayers that nothing had happened to Alex.
It was only at the end of the cells that he saw him. His heart leapt into his throat, filling his head with a heavy pounding. Alex's jumpsuit had the sleeves pulled back, showing several puncture wounds, probably from needles. His son had lost weight and looked scared. He looked around him with wide eyes, holding onto the cage wall for support.
Christopher yanked off his goggles. Alex's eyes focused on him and he let out a small cry. Running forwards Christopher pulled him into his arms. He could feel his son's tears on his chest and for a moment Christopher simply held him.
"It's going to be okay," Christopher said, "It's going to be okay."
"These records…God," Moira said.
She put a hand over her mouth. The details of the facility's experiments made her want to retch violently. They had been looking forward into all manner of things; transferring powers from one mutant to another, some forms of mind control, binding metal to skeletons. No wonder the Genoshans had been vehement about finding the MRD.
"Hey, Moira," said Levine, "I think you should look at this."
Leaving the records of the experiments she walked over to her partner.
"It looks like they were planning to close up shop and move," said Levine, "If we'd come here a week later then we'd have found an empty plant."
Moira furrowed her brow.
"They couldn't have known we were coming," she said, "We only told a few people."
"Yeah, and like I said," Levine replied, "Stryker's a slippery son of a bitch. If he's involved he's got his back covered. But it looks like some of his friends didn't cover their tracks quite so well."
He pulled up another file, dropping it on the desk. Moira flipped through it and smiled to herself.
"It looks like we'll have to call in Senator Kelly to answer some of our questions," she said, "Wonder if they'll let us handle it."
"If they want someone to scare the shit out of him they'll pick Captain Summers," Levine said, "And I thought the guy was scary before he got his son back."
Moira nodded, remembering the calm fury in his eyes as he carried his needle-marked son out of the holding cells. It was impossible to hold it against him. Alex's head had lolled limply against his father's shoulder and he looked confused. Moira knew that she would feel the same thing in his place. Alex was only three years older than Rahne. It was too easy to imagine them exchanging places if Rahne had remained in the states.
"Perhaps we can get Kelly to spill something about Stryker," Moira said, "Anything to give us an excuse to put a tail on him. Everything points to him being involved, but we don't have any hard evidence."
"Slippery," Levine said grimly.
He turned a few pages.
"But here's something else," said Levine, "It looks like they may have another facility up in Canada. It's not too specific, but I think that that's where they do some of their more heavy experimentation."
She looked over the file.
"Then it looks like we know where to go next," said Moira.