August 30, 1958
Christopher took a deep breath and inched forwards. The facility was well guarded, except for a few water pipes. The concrete tube was small and confining, pressing down on him. It didn't scare him though. If you were claustrophobic, or anything-phobic for that matter, then your career in the Special Forces would be a short one.
With one last push he made it through the pipe. He was soaked through and scraped up, but otherwise uninjured. This facility was smaller than the one in Pennsylvania, he was certain of it. It made him wonder if this was more of a base where people were sent out. The CIA agents had information that showed that experiments were going on, but much more specialized than the ones at Three Mile Island.
The small group of men with him managed to make it out of the pipe, their guns ready. There were three other groups coming from the different directions. Going low they crept through the halls. The inside was hardly less austere than the outside. The smell was also terrible, seeping under the doors. He recognized the scent of decay and steeled himself against what was coming next.
Forcing the door they entered some form of a laboratory. Charts hung on the walls, as well as long metal hooks. Molten material bubbled in a container in the corner. It was a metal, but not any metal he recognized. Mixing with the decaying body on the dissecting table the air was thick enough to choke on.
The two scientists doing the dissecting looked up. Immediately one of them went for the alarm. Christopher shot him in the hand, advancing on the other. He was much less blubbery than the scientist from the first mission, but not by much. It disgusted him how pathetic these men were in real life.
"How many mutants do you have here?" Christopher demanded, "And try not to lie. We have a rough estimate."
It was a lie, but the man wouldn't be able to know that.
"A…about twenty," the man stammered.
"Twenty," said Christopher slowly, "And were they twenty-one?"
He gestured to the mutant on the table. The gleam of metal emanated from their bones, silvery and brilliant. The scientist had the sense not to answer the question and he had both of them tied up. Many of the scientists they had captured the first time around hadn't been much help, but it was better than nothing.
A few of the men had lobbied for them to be handed over to the Genoshans for justice. Christopher was with them. Just like them he'd seen what had happened. His eyes glanced back to the dead mutant on the table. It was too easy to imagine that happening to Alex or Scott. They'd already proved that they showed no mercy to mutants, even mutant children.
Pushing the thoughts out of his head he motioned for his men to move on, locking the door behind them. He couldn't afford to dwell on it. They continued on. A few guards got in the way, but they weren't expecting the unit. They didn't have silencers, but there were only pockets of guards. Either this facility was very scantly populated, or they were moving out.
Within an hour the facility was cleared. A few of his men were escorting the mutant prisoners out. Unlike the first facility there were no children among them. The youngest was sixteen, still very young, but not as young as he'd expected. Their conditions appeared to be poorer, something he chalked up to the damp walls. He couldn't imagine any children surviving in there.
Christopher stood in the middle of the main room, leaning up against the wall and smoking a cigarette.
"Corsair? Come in. Over."
He picked up the radio and clicked it on.
"Corsair here. Over."
"CIA's requesting entrance. Is it clear? Over."
Christopher looked around the room at the guards that were being stacked up or shackled.
"It's clear. Over."
Moira opened another file. Across from her Levine sighed.
"It looks like they were trying to experiment with something called adamantium," Levine said, "I don't know what that is."
"Neither do I," Moira said, "We'll have to look into it."
He shifted a few more papers.
"Apparently all of the test subjects they tried to use it on died," said Levine, "They were looking for one with a really good healing factor."
Her thoughts went immediately to Logan. Moira shrugged the stray thought off and continued her search.
"Here's a memo," Levine said.
He smoothed out the piece of paper.
"Kelly gone," he read, "Move on with X."
She shrugged.
"Well, it sounds like they weren't happy about what happened with Kelly," Moira said, "They have a trial date on that?"
"Ever since the guy blubbed and pleaded guilty things have gotten complicated," snorted Levine.
Moira nodded and looked down on the paperwork.
"We're going to have to find out about X," she said.
"We're going to have to find out a lot of things," sighed Levine, "But it all indicates that this is the last of the facilities in North America."
"That's a blessing," Moira said, "We won't know for sure until we finish decoding all of these though."
Opening another file she stared at the pages inside. She frowned and began flipping through its contents. After another few minutes of silent searching she waved Levine over. He dropped his file into his briefcase and walked over. Moira pointed to the page she was looking at.
"The Sapien League," she read slowly.
Moira glanced at Levine.
"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"
"Conspiracy," Levine said.
"Not just an American one either," Moira said, flipping through, "They're international. This isn't a member's list, but it sounds like they have one facility in Russia, and two in Europe. Used to have three in Genosha."
"So that means we've got three to go," Levine said.
"Looks like," Moira said.
She squinted at some of the figures.
"I think they're old Hydra bases from the war," she said.
"You really want to open that can of worms?" asked Levine, wincing, "Hydra is SHIELD business Moira."
"I don't think that the Sapian League and Hydra are the same thing," Moira said, annoyed, "But it could be possible that they trucked together for a while."
"Anything's possible with these people," snorted Levine.
She closed the file and slipped it inside of her coat.
"This one is going to be important," Moira said, "I can tell."
"I've got most of the important information over here," Levine said, "Picture time now?"
"Looks like," said Moira.
She got out her camera and began clicking away around the office. Levine did the same. For a few minutes there was only the quiet clicking of their cameras. Then the ground shook and Moira fell to her feet. Levine managed to hold onto the side of a cabinet in order to remain standing. When the tremors were over he ran over to Moira, extending a hand.
Moira took it gratefully, letting him pull her to her feet.
"What the hell was that?" he asked.
She looked out the door and swallowed.
"I'm willing to bet it wasn't good," she said.
The front door had been ripped open. Christopher was not a man who scared easily. He'd seen far too much to take fright every time he saw something unbelievable. Seeing the heavily armored entrance to a top secret base peeled away though, that wasn't just unbelievable. That was downright impossible.
When the tremors had died down he'd expected to see some sort of machine. Instead he saw a man who was at least six feet in height and heavily armored. A helmet was heavily buckled down around his head, but it still showed his face. He smirked, throwing the door in front of him. The weight crushed three soldiers beneath it as he walked in.
"Knock knock!" he yelled.
Some of his men had gotten up quickly. They began firing immediately. The bullets were repelled by a flurry of swords, resulting in many of the men getting their bullets ricocheted back to them. This man wasn't armored, but there was something rather crazy about his smile, the way he stood.
"Okay, people are dead!" he called cheerfully.
Two other figures stepped in. He knew how to make quick decisions and take inventory of a situation. Christopher looked at the eight men who had died in the past two minutes. The situation clicked in his brain and he made a decision.
"Pull back!" he yelled.
His men began to obey, moving into their positions. He unclipped his radio, firing as he did so and trying to get some sort of signal. The rest of his men were outside, ready to take the imprisoned mutants to safety. Someone else needed to be warned first. They were in more danger than those already outside.
"This is Corsair! Pick up right this damn minute!" he shouted, not bothering to use the appropriate speech pattern.
On the other end he heard a slight fumbling.
"What's happening?"
"Mutants!" yelled Christopher, "Not our type! Get the hell out of here and to the choppers! We have to move right now!"
"Uh, got it!"
His men continued moving back and Christopher shot off another message to his men at the helicopters. One of the mutants was firing repeatedly, picking off the soldiers in the front row. Finally they got behind a door and slammed it shut. After what he'd seen he didn't think it would hold long, but he figured it was better than nothing. When a man suddenly appeared in their midst he decided to rethink his previous decision.
Whenever someone tried to take him down he disappeared and reappeared. However, there was a slight pattern to it. Christopher withdrew his hunting knife and waited. At the right moment he slashed out. The man reappeared and the knife buried itself in his shoulder. The man fell to the ground as the door began to buckle.
"Move!" Christopher shouted.
His men did so. They were running blindly now through the narrow corridors. Christopher hit his head more than once. He could hear heavy footsteps behind him, the ground shaking beneath them. His breathing increased and he heard his heart pounding. About halfway through they ran into Moira and Levine. They didn't say a word, just clutched their information and joined their flight.
He noticed that Levine was constantly snapping photos, along with Moira. He wanted to yell at them for not concentrating on running, but he didn't have the energy. They were being pushed along by his men anyway. When they came to the point where they had gotten in they slammed the wrought iron door down. Christopher hurried over to the wall. They didn't have time to crawl through the pipes.
From his pockets he withdrew plastic explosives. He set them up quickly and ran to the other end of the enclosure. Everyone covered their heads and he set off the charges. The wall was blasted open, wide enough for them to get out. They hurried forwards, surging through the newly-made exit.
Together they splashed through the fields. Only two of the helicopters had been instructed to stay behind. The others had been told to go on with their freed inhabitants. One of them began using the machine gun behind them and he knew that their pursuers were close now. It was only a little further though.
He heard a whistling noise behind him. The next thing he knew a chunk of concrete had landed on his leg, crushing the bones. Christopher cried out and fell to the ground. Despite the pain he tried to wrench his leg out. Two of his soldiers had noticed and were trying to assist him. It began to budge but he felt the shadow of the enormous man looming above him. He didn't even have time to tell them to leave him behind.
A hand reached for him as a shot rang out. The man took a step back, clutching the side of his face. The shot had skimmed the outside of his helmet. The blood seeping down his face indicated that it had gotten him but it hadn't killed him; his helmet was too strong. Nonetheless it gave them the time the needed to move him. The resulting machine gun fire gave them time enough to get him into the helicopter.
"Nice shooting MacTaggert," he heard Levine say.
Through the pain he managed to focus on Moira.
"Thank you," he managed.
"Lucky shot," she said.
The helicopter took off. As a medic began to work on his leg Christopher lolled his head to the side. Below him he saw the team that had attacked them. A few were arguing, but the armored man was simply clutching his head and looking after them. He wasn't quite sure, but he could have sworn he was looking straight at Moira, and with more calculation than anger. It was the last thing he saw before he blacked out.