Following the echoing sound of distance voices and using beneath as much as the flashlight, Danny wandered through the enormous structure that was bizarrely somehow linked to his basement. He shone the light down side corridors, seeing glints of reflections from metal around the place. Above him the faint green glow of emergency lighting indicators came and went, which barely cast enough light to see your hand in front of your face directly under them and between them were totally useless, aside from being able to spot the things at a distance. Which, after all, was the point of such devices.
Occasionally he passed something more brightly illuminated, self powered machinery still running on batteries and casting pools of light around them. He mused that from the point of view of the base itself it had only been hours at most since the external power had been shut off. Presumably the place had the usual emergency generators and battery banks somewhere down on the facilities level, but it seemed possible that Taylor neatly snagging Calvert's entire office contents including all his computers had interrupted the process of switching over to internal power.
Probably a good thing, actually, since if it used the type of propane or diesel fired generators he was familiar with, the exhaust could end up rapidly being a major issue since the base wasn't actually connected to any vents. In fact, that might explain the whole thing, if the emergency control system had detected the lack of exhaust venting and not started the generators due to the safety hazard it would present.
Shaking his head as he went over all the things that would need to be arranged if Taylor intended to keep this ridiculous place as a personal toy, he kept walking. Despite having spent quite a lot of time mapping the base from the outside before they grabbed Coil, he was still somewhat taken aback by how big it actually was on foot. The place was significantly bigger than it would originally have been and Endbringer shelters on a city scale weren't noted for being all that small to begin with. One like this was intended to have been would be designed to keep upwards of two thousand people alive, possibly quite a few more in fact, for several days.
They wouldn't enjoy the process, of course, since as large as it was that number would still be stacked in like cordwood, but it worked. For the number of people Coil had living in the thing, on the other hand, it came out to a fairly preposterous amount of space per person. More than his house had, he suspected.
So yeah. It was very large.
The damp concrete smell was explained when he passed one section that had warning signs posted around where clearly construction had still been in process. By the looks of it, Calvert had been upgrading the shelter even up to the point they'd acquired him. Danny wondered where he'd put all the material he'd have to have excavated to enlarge the thing, and how he'd gotten it out, before he recalled there had been a vehicle entrance. And for that matter an entire vehicle bay full of machinery. Presumably he'd just smuggled the debris out in trucks and dumped it somewhere, which would certainly work if you were careful about it.
Shaking his head at the sheer amount of effort the asshole had put into trying to do super-villainy, he turned a corner and saw light at the far end along with two voices becoming easily audible.
"This place is amazing!" Lisa commented, sounding impressed.
"It's cool, yeah. Much too cool for him to keep. Or the PRT to grab."
"What are we going to actually do with it though?"
"I'm curious about that myself," he said as he entered a large room full of power control plant, meters and breakers covering panels all around them. Taylor and Lisa were examining one large control system with interest. At his voice they turned and looked at him, both wearing very slightly guilty expressions over the underlying excitement.
"Hi, Dad," Taylor said, scratching her head in mild embarrassment. "Um… surprise?" She spread her hands widely in the manner of a stage magician who'd done something impressive, making him sigh and Lisa start giggling. "Look, we expanded the basement!"
"I noticed," he replied dryly. "A little warning would have been nice."
"It was a spur of the moment thing," she smiled.
"In our defense we were left unsupervised," Lisa put in, grinning. He sighed again.
"That is… true enough," he replied, moving to join them. "And I suppose no harm was done. What have you found?"
"This seems to be the main control room for the ventilation, power, water, that sort of thing," Taylor said, turning back to the six foot tall rack they'd been studying. "We found the generators downstairs, but they're all off. From what I could tell some emergency thing tripped out and prevented them starting when the main power went off."
"I was thinking about that," he nodded, also looking at the various complex controls and labels. "Probably due to the vents being blocked as far as the main control system is concerned."
"Makes sense," Lisa nodded. "So why didn't the batteries kick in? There's like two rooms full of huge battery banks next to the generator room, and all the meters down there say they're fully charged. But all the power's off except for a few small things here and there."
Inspecting the panel, he leaned forward, then prodded one breaker. It snapped in with a sharp click and a few green LEDs came on across the various racks, accompanied by an urgent beeping sound from two different places. "I think that's an overload warning," he said, pointing at a display on the next panel that was now flashing at them. "Something caused a main power bus alarm and without the generators on the whole system shut down. I think, anyway. We've got something a bit like this in the DWA electrical control building although it's a lot older."
Lisa looked at the alarm, reading the cryptic labels and obviously having her power tell her useful things about it neither of the other two could decipher without finding the manual for this place. "Oh. Yeah, that makes sense," she said after a few seconds. Turning to them, she explained, "When you grabbed Calvert's office you shorted out something on the three phase mains. Then the main power went off, then the control system figured out the exhaust and air vents were blocked when you pulled this place back, and it basically flipped out and shut everything down because it thought there was a major electrical problem." She pointed at the alarm display. "That's asking for a manual reset."
"So we give it one," Taylor replied. "How do we do that?"
"Like this," Lisa said, fairly confidently flipping half a dozen switches, pushing two more breakers in, then turning a final much larger switch to ON. There was a sequence of loud clunks from inside the machinery surrounding them, one after another, which made them all look around, then a sharp crunch accompanied by a distinct electrical discharge sound. The alarms stopped and most of the panels lit up with a vast number of indicators, several displays going through some sort of startup process, then the lights came on.
Lisa looked up, then grinned at them. "There we go. Power back on, at least as long as the batteries hold out. Which my power thinks will run this place on minimum standby for at least a week."
"That's about what the usual Endbringer shelter specifications claim," Danny nodded. They looked at him and he shrugged. "When you lifted this place I looked it up."
"Ah. Well, that's helpful. Hopefully we can figure out a better solution before they run down," Taylor replied with a smile.
A sound of fans was now apparent and the air around them developed a faint breeze. "Air recirculation's working too," Lisa commented, glancing at the control panels. "But we don't have external vents, of course."
"In theory there should be enough stored air in tanks somewhere to do at least two complete air changes for the whole thing," Danny remarked, thinking back to what he'd read online. "They're supposed to be capable of supporting the design maximum of occupants for up to two weeks while totally sealed, in case they end up underwater or something. Enough time to presumably arrange a rescue, I suppose. So they can scrub the CO2 out of the air, and replenish the oxygen, as well as force any smoke out if needed. Although I'd hate to even think about being in here if it was on fire…"
The thought was horrifying, to be honest.
"I think that's the air scrubber panel there," Lisa said, pointing. She walked over and inspected it. "Looks like it's basically at one hundred percent capacity still."
"With only us breathing the air in here it would run out of power weeks before the air went bad," he said, looking at the panel as well. "This place is absolutely huge and there's thousands of cubic yards of air in it even without the scrubbers running. Well, we don't have to worry about breathing safely for a while at least."
"And now we can see what we're doing," Taylor put in with a smile. He gave her a look, then peered at the flashlight she was still holding.
"Considering I know full well you can see better in the dark than normal people can in full daylight thanks to your special Papa skills, why the flashlights at all?"
She flicked it on and pointed it up at her face, dramatically underlighting it as she grinned widely. "Meddling kids always use flashlights to explore creepy underground bases, Dad. It's traditional."
He sighed as Lisa joined his daughter in laughing. "I see," he commented. "Silly question, really. I should have realized."
"Yeah. But we don't need them now, so…" Taylor made the flashlight vanish. The one Lisa was holding disappeared as well, making the other girl twitch for a moment in surprise.
"I've got pizza in the oven," he pointed out. "Why don't we go back and eat that, then discuss what you're going to do with this completely over the top place you've managed to acquire?"
"Ooh, pizza. Yeah, I'm hungry, that's a good point," Lisa said with enthusiasm. Taylor nodded agreeably.
"Sure. We found all sorts of neat things but we've only explored about a quarter of the place so far. It'll take days to do it properly. Hey, you need to see the garage. It's absolutely huge and has about two dozen vehicles in it. You wanted a new truck, right?" She grinned as he shook his head in amusement. "There are some really nice SUVs in there. And a Ferrari!"
"It may be just a little awkward to prove ownership of them, Taylor," he replied dubiously.
"Not really," Lisa laughed. He looked at her. "We've got everything Calvert had, including all his records, paperwork, you name it. I guarantee I can satisfy the DMV about who owns anything you want. I'm really good at that sort of thing."
Rubbing his forehead he gave up. She was undoubtedly right. "Fine, we can talk about that later. I need some food. Turn it all off so we don't waste the batteries and let's get out of here."
"You got it, Chief!" Lisa saluted smartly then turned to flip a few switches. The ventilation wound down to silence even as it went completely black except for some tally lights still burning around the room. "Whoops," Lisa's voice sounded in the dark, a note of embarrassment in it. "Didn't quite think that one through..."
Taylor was giggling even as she produced her flashlights again, and Danny shook his head fondly. Shortly they were heading back the considerable distance to what most people would have thought as normal reality.
"You sure about this, Taylor?" Kurt said as he and quite a few other people stood around watching.
"Relax," she told him with a grin, while checking her notes one last time. "It'll work. Probably." Giving him an impish look as he groaned theatrically, she added, "Don't forget the U.N.I.O.N. motto."
"Which one?" Matt chuckled. "Give us Reality for a day and we'll break it free of charge?"
"No, that was last week's motto," Lisa replied cheerfully. "This week's is 'We'll tear a hole in it for you cheap!'"
"Eldritch reconstruction a specialty," Kate put in, laughing.
Taylor's dad was shaking his head sadly but she could tell he was finding the whole thing funny even if it still caused him some issues. He'd probably get over that sooner or later, she thought as she tapped on the calculator to double-check her figures. Satisfied she had everything correct, she stored the documentation and the calculator away, then interlinked her hands and cracked her knuckles loudly.
"Right, then. One garage entrance coming up," she announced, staring at the wall at the back of the main vehicle depot, in a location everyone had decided was safe and didn't have anything behind it they'd need to worry about. Delving beneath she started doing much the same thing she'd done the day before, except in this case the really detailed part was already finished. Coil's old base was solidly planted just under the normal layers of the world, and all she had to do was make a link from the main vehicle bay door to here.
Simple enough…
In theory anyway. Administrator, who found this entire thing absolutely fascinating, had happily helped her check her calculations and despite commenting that it shouldn't actually work according to everything her database said, had also said the numbers held up. The fact that all this provably did work meant that her database was wrong, she'd added, and based on that, all Taylor's work was internally consistent even if it was utterly bizarre.
Overall Administrator was as interested in seeing where they could take Papa's ideas now she'd mostly gotten over the terror finding out just how big the universe really was once you poked under the skin as Taylor herself was. And had picked up a lot of the basics very fast indeed, leading both of them towards finding out steadily more about what could be achieved if you tried hard enough.
Concentrating, feeling Administrator watching and sending her wordless encouragement, Taylor leveraged her ability and started linking here to there through beneath. As had happened in the basement, an oddly pretty albeit somewhat disturbing iridescent light started to glow right through the brickwork, as if it was translucent and had a particularly enthusiastic rainbow having a party on the other side. Everyone stared as the wall rippled in a way that bricks normally very much didn't, Kurt muttering something rude under his breath. She quickly tweaked one thing after another, trying to stabilize the process which was being recalcitrant mostly due to being so much larger, until suddenly the entire building twanged without moving, feeling like it had slid sideways in several mutually exclusive directions simultaneously.
A sound that wasn't a sound swept through them, and as the somewhat dramatic effects of punching a hole through Reality died away, they left behind them a large metal door that was weirdly prosaic after everything that had led up to it appearing.
Taylor relaxed slightly, double checked everything was correctly locked down, then smiled widely. "Tada!" she said with a bow, sweeping her hand at the opening. "For my next trick…"
Her dad put his hand on her shoulder and laughed. "That'll do for now, Taylor. Let everyone recover before you try something more spectacular." She grinned at him, nodding.
"Holy shit," Matt murmured, staring, as was everyone else. He walked over and felt the door in mild disbelief then shook his head in wonder. "That is… very impressive."
"It's freaky as all get out, but yeah, impressive too," Kate laughed, moving to stand in front of the large portal and studying it. The thing was a two part metal door some twenty feet by fifteen, which seemed to open outwards based on the hinges. "How do we open it?" she asked, turning to look at Taylor. "It'll be powered, and the motors are on the inside."
"Easy," Taylor replied, peering into the mechanism. "Mostly easy, anyway," she added after tracing how the two big actuator motors on the ceiling inside the very thick door were connected to the door itself. From what she could tell, rather usefully there was a manual override that disconnected them, by removing a two inch thick pin that formed the hinge where the end of the actuator attached to the door. This in turn was held in place by a much smaller spring clip that went through horizontally. She just yoinked the entire assembly, which caused both doors to emit a short groan as tension was released. Removing the internal locking pins that went from one door into the other was also quickly achieved.
"There. That should do it," she announced. "There's nothing holding them shut now. I think we can just pull them open."
Mark put his hand on one side and experimentally pushed gently, then let go, watching it move slightly. "How thick are they?" he asked.
"About a foot. They're serious doors," she told him. He nodded understanding.
"They've got to weigh a couple of tons each at least. I'll get the forklift, we can attach a chain through there and pull them open." He motioned at an inset bar forming a sort of handle near the bottom of the left door panel. There was another one at the top. "Those are emergency connectors for this exact scenario, to let rescuers get inside without having to use cutting gear." Walking off he soon returned driving one of the DWA's electric forklift trucks, which they had a lot of in various sizes. It didn't take him and Kurt between them very long to get a heavy chain shackled to the connection point. Getting back on the forklift he slowly backed it away, the door opening surprisingly silently on well oiled hinges. When it was fully open, he released the tension and Kurt removed the chain. He, Matt, Kate, and Taylor's dad all pushed from the inside and swung the door as far as it would go, nearly folding back to the wall next to the opening.
When they'd done that, everyone gazed into the corridor behind the door. There was enough light from the big discharge lamps humming above them in the vast room that it was possible to see some distance down the opening, which was easily large enough to drive a pretty big truck down. The floor and walls were concrete, and the whole thing descended slowly at a slight angle to a point that was in complete blackness. "So this leads right into Coil's old base, which is somehow under your house, Danny?" Kate asked, looking at him.
"From what Taylor said it's not actually under my house, but I'm damned if I can fully understand the entire explanation yet," he replied with a shake of his head and a fond look at Taylor.
"It's more accurate to think of it as being in a pocket dimension," Taylor put in. "Although that's also not quite right." She pondered the matter, then ended up shrugging. "I can't come up with the words to explain it properly though so that'll have to do for now."
"Kind of like what that group Toybox are supposed to be able to do?" Matt queried. Lisa and Taylor exchanged glances. Lisa had mentioned the same thing the night before having come across the idea on PHO, and they'd spent some time looking into it. Information was rather vague on exactly what Toybox could provide but there was certainly a persistent rumor that your very own pocket dimension might be one of them. For a price. A very, very, very high price.
Taylor had been wondering ever since if she could find one of these things and have a good look at it, as she was curious about how they worked. Administrator had assured her that the way her kind did it was completely unlike how Taylor had done it though.
"A little, yeah, but through a totally different method," she replied after a moment. "This is a lot more flexible too, I suspect. I'm still working on all the ramifications of the whole idea. But for now, we have something cool to play with."
"OK, fair enough. Let's have a look at what that is." Matt pulled a large flashlight off his belt, as did most of the others, turned it on, and aimed it into the corridor. At the far end about a hundred or so feet away the light reflected off glass and metal, the dim outlines of several vehicles being barely visible. "You said you can turn the lights on?"
"Yeah, we can go down to the plant room and switch the battery power back on, that won't take long," Lisa replied with a nod. "But we can't fire up the generators unless Taylor connects the exhaust and air intake to the outside somehow."
"I can do that, sure," Taylor acknowledged. "I just need to know where they should come out. And we need to find them, of course."
"Might be better to run a three phase feed down into the place and reconnect it properly," Kurt commented, also aiming a flashlight into the opening. "The generators are a backup method, not the main power source. We can easily get a cable down the side there, and it won't take long to splice it into the original feed. From the plans this place was connected to the grid in two different areas for redundancy but all we need is one for now."
"All right, that's worth working on," Taylor's dad nodded. He produced a flashlight of his own. "Let's see what we need to do." He, along with Taylor, Lisa, and a dozen other people, headed into the vehicle entrance, their footsteps echoing loudly. When they reached the garage itself everyone panned the lights around. Kurt whistled in a low tone.
"Holy shit. There's about four or five million bucks worth of vehicles in here even if you don't count that." He pointed at a low-slung and extremely highly polished bright yellow supercar on the far side of the garage bay, which was about a hundred feet wide and nearly that long. "Nice Ferrari. I want a go in it." He grinned widely.
"That is hardly the least conspicuous car I've ever seen," Taylor's dad pointed out. "And considering it's about half an inch off the ground, around here it'll get stuck inside thirty seconds."
"And it's obviously the Chief's car anyway," Kate said, making him sigh and everyone else laugh.
They spread out to inspect the vehicles, which included seven more identical vans to the one Taylor still had stored way, several motorcycles, three large, black, and very governmental-looking SUVs with glass that was obviously armored in the windows, half a dozen items of construction equipment, and what seemed to be an armored personnel carrier identical to the ones the PRT used. In fact, on closer examination, it was a PRT one. Repainted, but Calvert had clearly managed to walk off with larger items than PRT radios and weapons.
"How the fuck did he manage to steal this thing?" Matt asked, shaking his head in what was almost respect. "It's a million dollar milspec vehicle. These things are built to order, you don't just go to the dealer and drive one away."
"I have no idea but the man didn't lack for ambition, that much is clear," Taylor's father replied, walking around the huge vehicle, which could easily carry at least a dozen people and a lot of equipment. Taylor saw that Lisa was giving it a very intrigued look, which made her smile to herself.
"I think at least one of those SUVs came from the PRT," she said, pointing at the vehicles. "They sure look like something the government would use with the blacked out windows and everything. And they're armored too."
"Yeah, they're also government issue," Matt said after having a look. "This one was probably lifted from the PRT while I think the other two might have been FBI ones or something like that." He thumped the window of one which produced a dull thud. "Or even Secret Service. God knows how he laid hands on them."
"Well, once I've had some time with his computers they'll be U.N.I.O.N. vehicles," Lisa said, smiling widely and making him snicker. "We can make better use of them than the government can and they have lots left, right? They obviously didn't miss these ones."
"Girl's got a point, Chief," he laughed, giving Taylor's dad a look of hilarity. "Any self respecting secret agent group needs some cool cars."
"Oh, for…" Her father sighed and threw his hands in the air. "Fine. They're not guns, so I suppose we can keep them."
"Those vans also had armories like the first one did, and booby traps too," Taylor commented, nodding at the things. "I removed all that back when we grabbed Coil and his toys. So all the army's guns went back, but I have an awful lot of C4 and detonators stored away. It's bound to come in useful sooner or later, right?" She grinned as Matt started laughing again.
"Yeah, probably best to stop talking about that before the Chief starts looking even more worried," he suggested, leaning closer to Taylor and lowering his voice in a manner that let everyone present hear. Taylor giggled.
"Kurt, go with them to the power room and see what needs to be done to wire this place into the mains, will you? Taylor, you and Lisa turn the batteries back on, and stop trying to give me a coronary. The rest of us will have a good look around and see what we're dealing with. I still can't believe how huge this damn place is."
"Got it, Chief!" Taylor saluted, Kurt doing likewise, as Lisa bowed. All three of them were laughing. Her father very deliberately ignored the byplay and went to discuss the various vehicles with Matt and the others although she could see he was hiding a laugh of his own. Smiling, she waved to Kurt. "It's this way," she said, leading him and Lisa out of the garage deeper into the base.
A few minutes later they entered the power room, Lisa going over to the control panel and turning the battery controls on again. As had happened the first time the sound of the ventilators started up as the lights came on. Kurt turned off his flashlight and slipped it back onto his belt even as he looked around with an impressed expression. "Jesus. This is a hell of a thing, isn't it? I hate to think how much all this cost. It's right up to date and high end too." Moving away from them he started carefully inspecting the equipment. Taylor pulled out a spare notebook and a pen and handed them to him. Accepting them with a mutter of thanks, he began making notes.
Taylor and Lisa left him to it and started exploring some of the other rooms nearby. They were in the process of examining a store room that was piled to the ceiling with supplies when Kurt found them again twenty minutes later. "Wow. OK, that answers the question of whether there were spares for anything," he said after coming into the room and looking around. Picking up a box from one shelf he shook it lightly, then read the label before putting it back. "Seems there's probably spares for everything. Enough to keep this place running for years just in this one room."
"There's about three more like it around the place," Lisa replied, putting the toolbox she'd been looking at back on the shelf in front of her. "Apparently he spent a lot of money on maintenance stuff."
"Probably didn't want to risk being trapped inside with something breaking down if trouble started," the man nodded. "Not that it helped him. He didn't see you coming."
Taylor chuckled. "Which was the point."
"Yeah. OK, I've had a good look around the main power control room back there and got a list of things to investigate. Found a manual too." He held up the thick binder he was carrying. "Wiring diagrams and everything. Where's the high voltage room and the generators?"
"Next level down, almost underneath that one," Lisa replied.
"Let's have a look. From what I'm seeing it won't be hard to connect this place up to the mains, but I need to check a few things to be sure." Kurt stood to the side as they both left the room, then walked down the corridor to a stairwell. Opening the door they entered. He looked over the railing, both up and down. "Huh. One level lower, and two up?"
"Yeah. There's an even lower level under the middle of the bottom floor but that's some sort of huge septic tank, I think," Taylor replied as she descended the stairs. "There's an access panel in the floor in the room that has a massive tank of diesel in it. We had a quick look but it smells terrible so we didn't much feel like getting more involved with it."
He chuckled. "Can't say as I blame you. Best left alone, that sort of thing. Leaving the smell aside the gas buildup in one of those will kill you right quick and you'll never even realize it until it's too late. You need breathing equipment and a safety partner to work on that sort of thing. We don't need to worry about it for now though." Only a couple of minutes walk had them entering the first of several rooms that were filled with even larger equipment than upstairs. One had four enormous generators, arranged in two pairs, coupled to massive engines. The pipework for these disappeared through the ceiling, with the room next to it almost completely filled by two steel tanks the size of small swimming pools labeled as containing diesel oil. Based on the data plate on them they held nearly twenty thousand gallons of the stuff each.
On the other side of the corridor a similar room had several enormous tanks that held propane, the indicators on them all showing full. Kurt studied them, scratched his chin thoughtfully, then went back to the generator room and had another look at the machinery. "Hmm. Interesting. I wonder why they did it that way?"
"What do you mean?" Taylor asked curiously.
"Both propane and diesel. This pair of generators run from one, that pair runs from the other. It's a little odd, normally you'd pick one not use both, but…" He shrugged. "Looking at it, I think the diesel was probably the original installation and the propane was added after he started modifying the place. He might just have been paranoid enough to want the redundancy."
"My power is also suggesting that he put the propane in as part of his self destruct system," Lisa said after a moment, making both the others look at her. "Some of the explosives you took out were right under them, right?"
Taylor nodded slowly. "Now that you mention it… Yeah, there was a really big block of the stuff under the floor."
"Christ. He really wanted to fuck things up, didn't he?" Kurt shook his head. "That much C4 would have left not a lot more than a crater anyway, adding a fuel-air explosion on top of that is kind of ridiculous. Man was crazy."
"Yeah. It's not a problem now though, is it?" Taylor asked.
"Nah. It's well installed and there are gas leak detectors all over the place, so it's as safe as you'd hope it was." Kurt pointed at a few sensors around the generator room and in the corridor. "Whoever did the work knew their stuff. All up to code and everything. If nothing else there's enough fuel capacity between them to power this entire place for months. Might be useful someday." He went down the corridor to the next room and peered inside. "Aha! That's what I was looking for. The high voltage AC switchgear. Let's have a look…" Vanishing inside as Taylor and Lisa exchanged glances, then followed, he started poking around.
"Let's see… Feed A comes from that way, which would have been right under the office block, and Feed B comes from this way, which goes all the way to the other end of the bunker and would have ended up… Yeah, must have tapped into the substation on Bleeker street." He was tracing the runs of very heavy cabling that went across the ceiling with his finger as he spoke, and writing more notes. "That'll go to a secondary switch room somewhere up near the garage, if I've got the layout of this place right. The other one must be above us somewhere. So we want the garage connector, it'll make it easier to run a line from our substation." He wrote down a few more lines, sketched out a quick diagram, nodded to himself in satisfaction, and closed the notebook with a snap. Putting it in his pocket he smiled at them.
"Easy enough. Take about six hours, I think. We've got the cable and fittings on the shelf."
"And if you're missing anything I bet it's somewhere down here," Lisa commented. He nodded agreement.
"Probably. Lots of spares for sure. All right, let's get back and get that started." The three started on their way back to the garage, hearing voices from several places as they went and seeing various people wandering around inspecting things. The entire former base was slowly coming alive, which amused and pleased Taylor in equal quantities.
"So I can just walk down one of these corridors and end up in your basement, four miles away?" Kurt asked a bit later, looking down one of the hallways.
"That's right," Taylor replied.
"Useful. And very weird," he grinned. "I can see some interesting possibilities for that trick."
"Oh, trust me, so can we," Lisa said meaningfully with a look at the other girl. They shared a secret smile. He shook his head in wonder. Shortly they found their way back into the garage where some of the vehicle technicians were examining the various machines in the large room, one van having two people almost buried in the engine compartment. The APC had all the doors open and Harry was poking around inside the back of it, giving them a nod as they passed.
"Found the keys, Chief," Matt said just as they found Taylor's dad, who was studying one of the SUVs with interest. He walked over holding a metal box, which he opened to show a couple of dozen sets of ignition keys, all labeled with the registration numbers of the various vehicles. "There's an office back there which has all the records of these things," he added, pointing over his shoulder with his thumb. "Which will be useful. Maintenance records, registration documents, manuals, the lot. Very organized. This was on the wall. There's a safe in there as well which Agent Gimme will have to check out."
Taylor looked in that direction for a few seconds. "It's got about ten grand and a handgun in it," she reported, turning back to him. "And a very dry ham sandwich."
He stared at her as Lisa started giggling, then shook his head respectfully while Taylor smiled. "Your abilities never fail to amaze and impress, Agent. Your training was first rate."
"The Chief only accepts the best, you know that," she replied calmly, trying not to laugh and spoil it. He winked at her then looked through the key box, pulling out one set after a short search.
Handing them to her dad, he said, "That should start this thing."
Her father took the keys, looked at them, shrugged, and got into the SUV. Putting the key in the ignition he turned it. The engine immediately fired up without any problems at all and rumbled quietly away to itself. Turning it off again he nodded.
"Seems fine."
"Looks like he might have been a murderous bastard with delusions of adequacy but he kept his gear in good condition," Kurt said from where he'd been watching. "Everything I've seen seems to have been regularly maintained."
"Probably had his mercs keep everything going to give them something to do when they weren't kidnapping people," Matt suggested with a momentary glance at Lisa, who winced a little. "Bored mercs are even worse than bored soldiers, and they're a fucking nightmare. You have to give them jobs or strange shit tends to happen."
"Trust me, I'm familiar with the concept," Taylor's father said, looking meaningfully at Taylor and Lisa then around the room. "It applies to teenagers too…"
Grinning, Matt went off to check that all the other vehicle keys worked, grabbing Kate to help him on the way. Taylor's dad turned to them, and Kurt. "Did you find out what you needed to know?" he asked.
"Yeah, it's not too hard, Danny," Kurt replied. "There's a power junction around here somewhere…" He looked about, then pointed. "Probably right over there, I'd guess. That'll be where the incomer for the main high voltage feed at this end terminated. We just need to splice in a new cable, run it up the entrance there, and connect it into the substation behind the workshop. Take a few hours, but it's not difficult. We've got enough spare capacity to fire this place right up without any trouble. The load isn't enormous. There's no heavy equipment in here, it's mostly the air processing, lights, and housekeeping services. We'll have to do some more thinking about how to sort out the water, sewage, and external ventilation systems though, but there's no hurry for that right now. Everything's self contained enough so it's not urgent once we have power."
"All right. Carry on, then." Her dad watched for a few seconds as Kurt headed back up the exit ramp, then turned to Taylor. "So what are you actually planning on using this place for? It's ridiculously large."
She shrugged slightly. "I'm not entirely sure yet but I bet we find a good use for it," she smiled. "There's lots of interesting stuff in here, there's even a firing range and a fully equipped gym in it! And a huge set of kitchens too, with freezers full of food. That'll still be fine, since the power wasn't off for more than a few hours and they're really big industrial ones."
"Ah… Now that's a good point, I admit," he replied with a smile. "I'll get some of the kitchen staff to inventory what we have. Food is always useful."
"Because people eat!" Lisa said with an air of someone to whom a great truth had just been revealed. He shook his head as he gave her a tolerant look.
"Thank you, Lisa. Your powers of deduction are astounding."
"I do what I can to help," she grinned.
"I'm sure you think that, yes," he replied dryly. Both girls laughed. "Fine. It's totally nuts, but somehow I can't help thinking your mom, when she stopped giggling, would love it. And it's growing on me, I have to admit. More space is always useful. This is a little more than I expected but…"
"If nothing else you can walk to work in five minutes and stay warm and dry even if the weather is horrible outside," Taylor pointed out. He nodded thoughtfully.
"That is indeed true, yes. Although this place is large enough we should probably get some bikes down here to get around." He grinned as Taylor considered the idea, which was a good one. "Let's see what else we can find. I've got a reasonable idea of the layout of the place from our initial investigation but nothing beats looking in person."
"OK." All three of them headed deeper into the construction, hearing echoing sounds of people working and moving about. Taylor thought that probably half the DWA was now wandering about doing things in here, and wondered if anyone was doing any of the actual work. On the other hand it was the weekend and everyone seemed to be having fun, so why not?
She certainly was. And seeing that firing range on the lower level, which was impressively large and well equipped had given her some ideas. Or, more accurately, reminded her of some ideas she'd had a little while ago but hadn't yet acted on.
"We should probably put Calvert's office back and reconnect everything, which will free up the shielded room," Lisa commented a moment later. "We've removed anything that might call out, and there's no one for it to call anyway, even if there were any external connections."
"Easily done," Taylor nodded. "Good idea. We can change the sign on the door from 'Evil Semi-Competent Super Villain' to 'U.N.I.O.N. Chief' too!"
Lisa began giggling again and Taylor was sure she heard her father muffle a chuckle before he cast a look of resigned put-upon mild irritation at her. She grinned back and he shook his head, but she knew full well he was enjoying this as much as any of them.
Things were going nicely and it was only mid-morning on Saturday. What else could they do before school started?
She didn't lack for interesting thoughts. And Administrator had some too...
Ethan stopped and looked upwards at the impressively large flock of ravens that flew overhead like something out of mythology, Glory Girl at the front of the formation carrying Panacea. The entire collection was heading towards Brockton General.
Shaking his head in awed respect, he wondered what would happen if anyone bothered the healer these days. He had a suspicion they would find the outcome very different than they'd been expecting.
His wife, next to him in civvies, as was he, was also staring. "What the hell?" she muttered under her breath.
"The Dark Lady's flock grows by the day," he intoned, grinning at her. "Soon she will command the loyalties of every… Ow! What did I do?"
"You started being you again," she said, shaking her head as she glared at him. He rubbed his arm and smirked. "Stop doing that."
"You know I can't. It's my entire charm!"
"Oh, for…" Sighing, she put her arm around him and leaned on him as they entered the coffee shop they'd been heading for before being distracted. "I love you, but you are hard work sometimes."
"Only sometimes?" He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "I need to up my game…"
Chuckling at her sigh, he cast one last look up to where the bizarre sight was vanishing behind the buildings, shook his head, and wondered if anywhere was quite as strange as Brockton Bay tended to be. Even on a good day.
He doubted it.
