Chapter 3: KUDEVIANT

' I don't know. Just got a bad feeling. Kind of like when you can smell the air change before a storm. ' – Lex Luthor, Season 1, Episode 21 : " Tempest ".

March 8th 2012. 02:59 AM UTC-6. South of Number 51 lake, Reynolds County, Missouri, USA.

The ventilation system proved to be impossible to sneak into. Its pipes were too narrow for two broad-shouldered men as Oliver Queen and Bruce Wayne. Besides, it seemed the facility was pumping out a lot of gas, potentially harmful substances out of the air vents. Even if the two housebreakers had brought breathing masks with them, it wouldn't protect their skins from the thin traces of mustard gas in the air filtering out of the pipes.

Working with the Batman brought many upsides. Notably the numerous and useful gadgets he carried with him. Oliver was grateful he had managed to save them from suffering any dangerous effects of the crap they would have been in contact with had they picked their first choice of route.

Crossing the eighteen miles of intensely prolific trees and bushes surrounding the building had been the easiest part of the plan. For once, Oliver's green suit had been an advantage. It took them four hours and a half to do so in order to avoid any patrols circling around. Knocking out a few guards would have made the process a lot quicker but they couldn't risk anyone alerting the security because someone wasn't answering their radio.

The hard part had been to cross from the forest to the facility itself while digging under the high electric fence. Oliver recognized luck played a big role there. The guards had set up a perimeter following the fencing around which another patrol of four guards divided in two groups walked. These groups had two dogs with them; German Shepherds, known for their excellent sniffing skills. When he and Bruce dug themselves into a hiding spot close-by, they were certain the dog would sniff them out and they'd have to force their way in.

It was a surprise when the patrol walked right past them and the dog trotted ahead of the men blissfully unaware of the vigilantes' presence. Bruce theorized the soil was composed of a lot of sulfur which, mixed in with water, expelled a strong smell that could have covered their own scents. Considering it had rained a lot the day before and the ground had turned into mud rather than dry particles of dirt, Oliver could only agree.

After slipping inside the facility's perimeter and closing the hole under the fence, things had been quieter. When both men realized the dangers of sneaking inside through the pipes, they decided to hoist themselves up the building's wall towards the roof. An easy task, when the light projectors were focused outwards of the facility which created an artificial shadow for anyone looking in from the outside.

Since it was a moonless night, the area was dark enough to hide them from being sighted by anyone while most of the guards seemed to be either inside the facility or sleeping in their own homes at this time of the day.

Oliver climbed onto the roof first and was about to breath a sigh of relief when it caught in his throat. Before him, just inches ahead, two surprised eyes stared at him. The man seemed unable to do anything but gape at the impressive figure of the Green Arrow. Oliver himself, had lost a second as his heart skipped a beat when he first realized he wasn't alone.

It was only when the guard started to raise his tone and his rifle began to point towards him that Oliver gave his face a world-moving blow, propelling the man to the left. The vigilante seized the opportunity to turn the young man around and position him in a sleeper hold while muffling his cries.

The sentinel, a soldier in national guard uniform who didn't even look past twenty years old, fell into a silent heap on the ground as Oliver could finally release a shaking breath. That was close, he thought. Had the poor guy's finger twisted on the trigger, the whole area would have been aware of the security breach and, then, he didn't even want to think about what would have happened.

"Arrow, are you okay?" came a frantic voice in his ear.

He nodded, knowing she could notice the movement from the camera integrated into his glasses. "I'm a lot better than I would be if I hadn't spotted him in time." he admitted. "It's really dark out there."

"Don't give me another adrenaline rush like that, Arrow."

That made him smile. "Worried about me, Tower huh?"

"I'm not going to answer that, this isn't even funny!"

He bit back a chuckle when another voice invited itself into their dialogue over their encrypted canal of communication. "When you two are done arguing, do you think you'd be kind enough to give me a hand, Green Arrow?"

Oliver leaned over the edge and grabbed Bruce's extended arm, pulling him to his level.

"I hope I won't have to drag you around for the whole thing, old man." he teased the Batman who gave him a sharp glare.

"Try coming back into the fold after a ten-year hiatus, kid."

He pursed his lips to prevent his amusement from showing on his face. "Admit it, though... you missed this, didn't you?"

Another growl. "Eye on the prize, Arrow. We're on a tight schedule."

Once the unconscious guard was positioned in a way that made it look like he had fallen asleep at his post, the two men started down the stairs leading into the facility. The big concern was the cameras. They had to reach the communication room to take control of the surveillance system and thus, keeping their presence hidden. It ended up being an issue once Oliver found a map of the building hanging on the wall.

"See that?" he whispered, showing his colleague the map.

Bruce leaned over it and grunted. "We won't be able to make it all the way down without being caught."

"No," Oliver said, staring at the elevator doors at their end of the corridor. "But I've got an idea."

The chaotic noises of the keyboard made Oliver even more nervous. He growled in impatience and sent a look over to the four sleeping men laying on the ground. Green darts poked out of them. They'd been laid under the desks out of view from the outside. Not that it would help if someone was going to enter the room wondering why it was empty. He shook his head. These thoughts weren't helping.

"Try again, I've coded a hole into their MAC." Batman's rasping tone said from the main chair.

"Same port?" another voice asked in the comm.

"Yes," Bruce confirmed. "Are you connecting?"

"I'm in!" came Chloe's excited voice.

Oliver let his shoulders fall in relief. "You're in the game now, Watchtower." he reminded her.

"I've launched a scanning process to see what they've got." she explained. "The cameras and blueprints were the first thing I saw, how nice of them!"

"What do you see?" Batman asked.

"Looks like they're still clueless about you guys." she paused. "Okay! I've got some results already. Wow this facility is actually much much bigger than we thought."

"What is it?"

She remained silent for a moment. Oliver could picture her speed-reading over the results on her screens. "They have over 1300 inmates in this facility. 1300, Arrow!"

Oliver cursed. "They didn't waste time. It's too much for us, we can't break them all out safely."

"We have to try." she insisted. "At the very least to know what's truly going on there and gather some proof."

"They must have a massive underground installation," Bruce mused. "This building is large, but not large enough to accommodate so many people. Even prisoners."

That made the Green Arrow grimace. "Tower, Is this going to be a problem for the comms down there?"

"It seems they're using wireless access points all over the facility," she answered. "That's one point for us. I can make our communication channels go through their network and back to me but..."

"But that's going to give away your location." Oliver guessed sadly.

Her sigh was all the answer he needed. "Sending so much data through Tor would create so much latency. I'd be useless to you if you ever ran into trouble."

However, Bruce didn't see things their way.

"We're already running on borrowed time," he started. "Watchtower, you should be safe for another half-hour if we proceed. To be sure, you pack in twenty-five and head straight to base, we'll meet you there."

"It's risky!" Oliver protested.

They all knew this mission was a gamble. If anything went wrong for Oliver and Bruce, Chloe would have little to no chance helping them since there was nobody else to call as back-up. Likewise, Chloe being the pivotal member of the League, the men couldn't afford losing her and all her directing skills. Besides, her worth was much more than what she could bring to the team for Oliver. He often wondered if he'd be able to think rationally if she somehow was the one to get kidnapped.

Bruce seemed to be running out of patience. He grunted and turned on his heels, heading towards the door to keep watch. "Make a decision." he told them.

"We have to do it."

"Do you realize what they're going to do to you if they ever catch you?" Oliver asked.

She sighed. "It would be just as bad as if you were captured." she retorted. "Listen, we both know the risks. Don't you think the reward would be worth it?"

Oliver huffed. "Do you really want an honest answer?"

"Arrow..."

He dropped his head to his chest. "Alright."

"Okay?" her voice became hopeful.

He nodded. "Do it."

The Green Arrow threaded carefully through the darkened corridors of the first underground level. He and the Batman had split to map the facility faster. They planned to meet up at the last level before going back up.

His comm link crackled. "Okay so, we are now connected through the Clearnet." Chloe announced. "All cameras are on a loop, there are no guards patrolling this area so far and I've also deactivated your video connections to speed things up, so make sure you don't damage or lose them because they'll be lost if you do."

"Copy. Batman, out."

Oliver poked at his ear. "Got it, Tower. Remember your time is limited."

"It's on the forefront of my mind. Arrow." she answered. "Initiating radio silence. Good luck, boys."

Now was the time to become the shadows and explore. In case they ran into trouble or if Chloe detected an issue, they'd be in contact. Until then, both Bruce and him needed the quiet to focus on the task ahead which was simple enough: Go in, report, go back out. Alive.

Such was their plan. One big gamble. In the past, had something gone wrong, Oliver would have asked for help. Now was a different time. All of his friends bare Bruce and Chloe had been captured. They were either being tortured or...

Oliver breathed out slowly. It was better not to think about it.

His forearm buzzed. He looked down to the dimmed screen fixated on his arm. One red dot blinked on the map. Chloe signaled to him of a guard's presence close to his position. The dot seemed static and entrapped in a small room. Oliver guessed it was a resting area where the men could have something to eat or sleep.

Ten paces further and his speculations were confirmed. Round the corner of the main alley came a sliver of light and the whispers of a few voices.

Moving forward in silence, Oliver remained glued to the outer wall for a minute to listen to the sounds and determine the situation. The guard's room, a few feet to the right, was the only animated part of this facility's section. It was vital for the vigilante to neutralize whoever was in that room if he wanted to cross this section and explore the next one which was supposed to be one of the prisoners' lots.

Letting conscious and fight-able guards trailing his path could prove dangerous if he ever encountered any problem ahead and needed to pull back.

He was now close enough to make sense of the sounds muffled behind the door left ajar. It became clear to Oliver that whoever was in this room was listening to something, either a radio or a television post.

Deciding to take another risk, he came up the door and let himself make sense of the words.

"...since 2003. The President declared it was time to end the conflict once for all and pacify the area, I think it's clear he didn't share the national enthusiasm when we took down Saddam and I'd say, looking at it after all these years, that he was right!"

Lex. He gritted his teeth. It shouldn't be any surprise to him that they would talk about the Luthor heir since it became the medias' favorite pastime when Lex won the presidency. From then on, it became impossible to find an unbiased opinion about him on the papers.

Sometimes it became so grotesque he wondered how the population didn't notice the propaganda hitting them over the head again, and again, and again.

"We have to stop saying the people's always right because it obviously is not. We need a strong man in the office, one able to give back America its power. I believe we found such a man in Lex Luthor. We're going to do great things-"

Unable to take any more of it, Oliver kicked the door open and rushed towards the lone guard half-sprawled on the chair in front of his TV screen. He barely had the time to stand up before the Green Arrow knocked him out.

"I'm doing you a favor, buddy." Oliver whispered as he turned off the offending monitor. "You shouldn't listen to all these lies."

He left the man on his chair, bringing his arms together on his chest to make him look like he fell asleep. Oliver then locked the door behind him with the keys found in the guard's pocket and continued on his way down the corridor.

The further he engaged himself into the alley, the darker it got. This part of the facility was bare of any light source which forced Oliver to activate his night vision. A few paces later and he met with a reinforced steel gate, a password-activated one.

The Green Arrow typed on the screen fixed on his forearm.

"- Code for door 71?

- 729016"

Following Chloe's word, he entered the password into the gate and heard the locks being pulled away as it opened. Oliver remained frozen for a moment when he realized he couldn't see the end of the room. Another pitch black area, but this one was different.

On each side of the corridor were cells. All the way down the alley and it seemed to go on and on. It looked like he had found the cell blocks. Oliver shivered in anticipation of what he was going to find.

"Let's see what your sick mind has in store, Lex." he murmured before moving into the room in silence.

Looking into each of the cells, Oliver found they were all populated. Some contained only one person, others several and he found two of them that contained twenty people. He had lost count of how many cells he had examined, it felt like he spent hours looking and still, the end of the alley remained unreachable.

He must have looked into dozens, if not hundreds of cells and he could count on his hand the number of times he found someone awake. Most of the people remained unmoving on the concrete ground, sleeping – or at least, he hoped so. The only ones awake looked to be in a state of shock, hidden into a corner, hugging their knees to their chests as they watched him, through their cloudy and unblinking gaze, unresponsive.

If Oliver was unsettled when he observed the first cells, now he was starting to get sick. The more he was watching, the more he noticed the appalling conditions in which these people were detained. The cells were spacious but that didn't hide the lack of proper waste management, the bucket in the corner as the only source of water and the utter and complete lack of food.

Most prisoners were obviously underweight. Some even looked like skeletons while others, were surprisingly, morbidly obese. Nothing in between. At one time, Oliver passed by a woman scratching her arms in furious fashion until they bled. She only stopped for a second to give Oliver a glance before she resumed her task with more vigor. The noise of frantic scratching made the Green Arrow's hairs stand up.

He shook his head, trying to keep his wits only to be taken by surprise when he noticed one of the prisoners had pressed himself again the bars and seemed to be calling to him, extending a frail hand for him to take.

Oliver hesitated for a second before approaching the man. He crouched to be at eye-level with him. The prisoner, a malnourished man of asian origin, trembled as his mouth moved and quivered. It seemed he was trying to talk to him but no sound came out of him. As if, telling the horrors he had seen and lived through was an impossible task.

He held the man's hand, feeling bones rather than fingers circle his own as the prisoner gripped him in fear he would leave. Through it all, the man never ceased trying to speak to him. Oliver couldn't only watch in dismay as he tried to communicate vainly. The Green Arrow felt his throat constrict at the man's despair until he noticed the tears rolling down his cheeks in abundance. At this sight, Oliver let out a strangled sob.

"God, what kind of hell is this?" The man looked down and cried harder. Oliver gave his hand a light squeeze.

He had decided to force the gate open when a sharp noise hissed from the other end of the alley. Immediately, the prisoner had let go of his hand and fled to the depths of his cell. Oliver leaped to his feet and took hold of his crossbow, aiming it at the opening door.

A scientist appeared. He made two steps before jumping in surprise at the sight of the Green Arrow holding him in contempt. His clipboard slipping from his hand and clattered on the ground, the sound echoed throughout the area.

The vigilante growled as he motioned him forward. The man, fearful of him, obeyed and approached, his steps noisy. Oliver moved to the side in order to circle around him and close the gate. However, he hadn't planned the moment when two arms dashed in his back and flattened him against the bars of a cell.

He cried out in pain when the prisoner screamed against his ear. It sounded like a mix between a laugh and a plead of despair. It went on and on while Oliver struggled to get free until the arms went away. He jumped away from the cage and turned around, feeling his heart pounding in his chest.

There, in the darkness of the cell, a cackling form emerged from the shadows. The prisoner bent from side to side hiding his face behind his hands as his eyes peeked from between his fingers. Oliver took another step back when he witnessed, horrified, the terrifying spectacle of the prisoner uncovering his hands as he laughed harder.

A sizable portion of his face had been teared off. The skin hung in the air while the muscles under it had started to rot. It dangled around when the man was caught in a fit of cackles, his eyes, the picture of insanity, focused on Oliver.

The situation went from bad to worse when the alarm blared through the walls as red lights flickered incessantly from all over. Oliver turned around to see the scientist removing his arm from the alert panel.

"Surrender yourself, you won't be able to leave this place!" The man asserted even as he tried to back away from him, fear painted all over his face.

The Green Arrow looked as mad as he felt, the veins in his neck bulged out as he stepped towards the lab coat and punched him.

When he opened his eyes, the scientist felt his heart in his mouth. There, looking down on him, were two imposing figures hidden by the shadows of the night. He was in the middle of the forest, far from the facility even though, his ears picked up a faint echo of agitation in the background.

He was starting to sit up on the mud when the thunder ripped through the skies, illuminating the two vigilantes ahead of him. A cry escaped his throat when he recognized the hooded face of the Green Arrow who wasted no time pulling him closer.

Arrow was ticked off and he was shaking, a terrifying rage motivated his tone as he started to talk.

"KUDEVIANT. What is it?!"

The scientist, paralyzed, could do nothing but stare at his captor. His only answers were unintelligible stutters. Another voice rose, breaking his torment.

"Why is there no centralized databank in this facility?" The second vigilante asked, his voice a rasping whisper. The scientist could only stare for a moment. Two pointy-ears, piercing eyes and a long dark cape; these were adjectives that were only used to describe a legend, a myth. The Batman.

"The databank?" he gulped.

Green Arrow shook him. "Where is the information about the project hidden?!"

"It's not here!"

The shaking continued, becoming violent. "Don't try to stall!" The shouts and barking of dogs were getting closer.

"We've seen first hand what kind of experiment is going on here." The Batman continued. "Do you want to know what he will do to you if I leave you alone?" he asked, pointing to his companion in green.

Of the two men, Batman may have the fear element on his side with his mysterious aura but at the moment, the barely repressed rage the Green Arrow was radiating preoccupied his prisoner much more.

"It's all sent off-site!" the scientist almost cried. Arrow and Batman shared a look before another shake prompted the rest of the answer. "The project... it comes from the very top! All orders are sent from Location X. It's the root of the experiment, they collect the results and everything else too!"

"Location X." Batman repeated.

"Where is it?" Green Arrow tightened his grasp.

The man took a much needed breath, he could feel the tears wetting his cheeks. "Don't kill me, please!"

"Where is it, damn it?!"

"On Metinic Island, in Maine!" he sobbed, going on incoherent rants, pleading them to spare his life.

The bushes rustled around as the dogs' barks were close. When the scientist took his hands off his face, the two vigilantes were gone just as the guards emerged from the depths of the forest.

"Sir, are you okay?"

"I... I don't know..."