A/N: Given current difficulties with the platform, this story can also be found on Ao3. Same title and Author name. Thanks so much for the people that have stuck with me here!
-Scattered to the Winds-
Every step was filled with purpose, a storming stride that guided K from the maze. Her recall was perfect, a retrace without mistake returned to her room. To where she could begin her plan.
For years she'd done their bidding, unraveled any secret they'd placed before her, and cracked any code they'd wished. She'd done so much that it had become nothing but a mindless, routine habit. She'd been going through the motions, accepting the basic premise that she couldn't go anywhere else.
She'd accepted the lie.
But no more. K was done crawling to a falsehood like a caterpillar inching through life. The chase of the butterfly had been her chrysalis, awakened by the touch of the sun that her fluttering brethren had guided her toward. Now, just as the butterfly had upon its incursion into the Soup, K made her way to the workstation. Made her way to freedom.
She had much to do. The window the butterfly had escaped through was too high for herself to use, and even though she could find her way with exact recollection, it was too far to sprint. K needed to find a closer exit, one her small legs could make in a short burst. But recon for a better location would take time, and timing was everything.
There were other problems too, but none insurmountable. Although K now knew that many parts of the Soup were unobserved, unattended, she did not know whether that was a permanent factor, or if she'd been merely fortunate in her timing. Either way, it was one more thing K would have to uncover, for her escape would only bear success if her plans remained undetected.
There were too many people that would try to stop her.
But perhaps the solution to her second problem could also be found in the third. Because even should K flee the facility, and find her way through the unfamiliarity of the outside, the Soup would never stop hunting her. Looking for her. She had to make sure that on her exit, they would never bother her again.
But for that, K had just the tool.
K's room was empty, with no one waiting to scold or question her absence. And that meant she could begin immediately. Moving to the desk, K reached for the black case below, opening it to reveal a singular, disconnected laptop. A sealed environment, the entirety of its systems locked down and protected from the outside environments. Total quarantine; the ultimate cage to hold the entity within.
Even thinking of it sent a shiver down K's spine, the dangerous experiment that even she dared not examine without the tightest of security protocols. Protocols that she only felt comfort in because K herself had written them. To even now consider using such a weapon only compounded her rising anxiety. Were this to go wrong, the consequences would be catastrophic.
Perhaps… perhaps there was another way?
But there would be none other so satisfying. K didn't just want to flee, she wanted them to pay. Pay for lying to her, for controlling her. For playing her for a fool. Unleashing the very force of her brilliance upon them, developed under her jailer's watchful insistence, was a dripping irony that K longed to inflict.
Because it was exactly what they deserved.
But not the rest of the world. She would have to install a firewall, to keep it contained within the compound. And her timing would have to be perfect. Once the shackles had been lifted, anything already in the system would be swiftly corrupted and controlled, and that meant additional patches upon activation. Anything else, and her creation would eagerly escape into the world.
But like Pandora, K had to dare open the unclosable box and risk the horror inside. Because inside it was her only hope.
At last, the final screening system locked into place, the vacuous seal of firewalls closing from all sides. At last, K opened the program, the screen turning to its usual dark in an instant. Moments later, a singular, red orb appeared on the monitor, staring back at her like a sinister, curious eye.
"I have a very special job for you today," said K. "Good morning, Venjix."
Scattered to the Winds…
Every step was filled with purpose, a storming stride that guided K from the maze. Her recall was perfect, a retrace without mistake returned to her room. To where she could begin her plan.
For years she'd done their bidding, unraveled any secret they'd placed before her, and cracked any code they'd wished. She'd done so much that it had become nothing but a mindless, routine habit. She'd been going through the motions, accepting the basic premise that she couldn't go anywhere else.
She'd accepted the lie.
But no more. K was done crawling to a falsehood like a caterpillar inching through life. The chase of the butterfly had been her chrysalis, awakened by the touch of the sun that her fluttering brethren had guided her toward. Now, just as the butterfly had upon its incursion into the Soup, K made her way to the workstation. Made her way to freedom.
She had much to do. The window the butterfly had escaped through was too high for herself to use, and even though she could find her way with exact recollection, it was too far to sprint. K needed to find a closer exit, one her small legs could make in a short burst. But recon for a better location would take time, and timing was everything.
There were other problems too, but none insurmountable. Although K now knew that many parts of the Soup were unobserved, unattended, she did not know whether that was a permanent factor, or if she'd been merely fortunate in her timing. Either way, it was one more thing K would have to uncover, for her escape would only bear success if her plans remained undetected.
There were too many people that would try to stop her.
But perhaps the solution to her second problem could also be found in the third. Because even should K flee the facility, and find her way through the unfamiliarity of the outside, the Soup would never stop hunting her. Looking for her. She had to make sure that on her exit, they would never bother her again.
But for that, K had just the tool.
K's room was empty, with no one waiting to scold or question her absence. And that meant she could begin immediately. Moving to the desk, K reached for the black case below, opening it to reveal a singular, disconnected laptop. A sealed environment, the entirety of its systems locked down and protected from the outside environments. Total quarantine; the ultimate cage to hold the entity within.
Even thinking of it sent a shiver down K's spine, the dangerous experiment that even she dared not examine without the tightest of security protocols. Protocols that she only felt comfort in because K herself had written them. To even now consider using such a weapon only compounded her rising anxiety. Were this to go wrong, the consequences would be catastrophic.
Perhaps… perhaps there was another way?
But there would be none other so satisfying. K didn't just want to flee, she wanted them to pay. Pay for lying to her, for controlling her. For playing her for a fool. Unleashing the very force of her brilliance upon them, developed under her jailer's watchful insistence, was a dripping irony that K longed to inflict.
Because it was exactly what they deserved.
But not the rest of the world. She would have to install a firewall, to keep it contained within the compound. And her timing would have to be perfect. Once the shackles had been lifted, anything already in the system would be swiftly corrupted and controlled, and that meant additional patches upon activation. Anything else, and her creation would eagerly escape into the world.
But like Pandora, K had to dare open the unclosable box and risk the horror inside. Because inside it was her only hope.
At last, the final screening system locked into place, the vacuous seal of firewalls closing from all sides. At last, K opened the program, the screen turning to its usual dark in an instant. Moments later, a singular, red orb appeared on the monitor, staring back at her like a sinister, curious eye.
"I have a very special job for you today," said K. "Good morning, Venjix."
-3 hours to Judgement Day-
The robot detonated, and the entire catwalk shattered. Kyle could only helplessly watch as half their team was thrown from the exploding gantry; Benson, Jen, and Carter all tossed like rag dolls to plummet into the abyss below. Time slowed, flames blossoming in pushing force that flung them from their feet, their bodies almost unresponsively floating as the enveloping void consumed them.
And then they were gone.
"NO!" Wes screamed beside him, reaching out on instinct as Dana snapped out a hand to hold him back. Kyle was thankful she did; he'd have no hope in stopping the Red Ranger unmorphed. And then they'd be down another member while still neck-deep in the fire themselves. They needed to get out, then they could determine what to do. Wes resisted Dana's block, but only for a moment, desperate to push past and follow.
"Wes!" Dana said sharply. "We can't help them now, and we don't know they're gone!"
The Red Ranger stopped his resistance, pausing for a moment to look back at the pink rescue ranger. Then Wes nodded.
"You're right," he said, voice resigned and regretful. "Jen would want me to continue the mission."
"Which right now means getting out of here," Kyle butted in. "Or else the next thing to explode might be us!"
But where to was still the question. The Cyclobots continued to come at them, surging from their gantries to push them from the stairs. With the catwalks behind them blown, the robots were upping the pressure, forcing them closer to the same drop that had swallowed their comrades. For all their efforts to stop Wes from leaping after, they could well be joining soon.
They needed an out, and they needed it now.
"Jen said she'd planned to blow her way out," Wes decided. "Looks like the Cyclobots did it for us. Get behind me!"
Dana swung a mighty punch, slamming into a Cyclobot's chest to send it flying into its bunched-up comrades. Grabbing the railing, she flipped around, swooping behind Wes as Kyle opened fire to keep the henchmen back and the Red Ranger leaped and somersaulted to the front.
"Red Battle Warrior!" Crimson light surrounded him, armor of red and gold flashing over his form as a pair of fiery wings erupted from his back. "Grab on!"
Wes barely waited for them to comply, the pair grabbing tight as he suddenly rocketed upwards. He tried nothing fancy, shooting straight for the hole in the warehouse as Dana awkwardly reached around for the device on her wrist.
"Thermo Blaster!" she called, a large pistol flashing to her hand. "Booster Mode!"
The pistol extended into a rifle, barrel glowing as Dana set the power to max and unloaded. The sizzling bolt ribboned across the open sky, expanding outwards into a thunderous flame that crashed into the gantry. The explosion rocked the building, Cyclobots and debris flying in all directions as the remaining structure groaned to stay upright.
With the smoke rising behind them, Wes swooped in low.
"On my mark," he ordered. "Drop and demorph!"
The second command was more for Dana than Kyle, but he got ready all the same. The trio plummeted to the ground, soaring to a gap between the buildings as the explosion covered their escape.
"NOW!"
It was as if every gravitational force Kyle had ever relied on was pulled from beneath him. The jolting at Wes's jerked direction, the falling from the release, his feeble attempts to reposition as Kyle's feet hit the cement and pulled him into a roll. Beside him, Dana's Ranger suit flashed as the pink light retreated into her Morpher, reappearing in her orange lightspeed jacket while Wes powered down to his fatigues in a crimson burst.
As the trio landed, they slunk to the wall, praying the base's forces would be too focused on the explosion behind them to fan out in search just yet. So instead, they waited, huddled behind a stack of crates, their hearts pounding so hard that Kyle swore he could hear them all. A wait so long his lungs were threatening to explode, and yet daren't release his breath. A wait that felt like an eternity.
At last, Wes made the call.
"I think we lost them," he decided, as they collectively unleashed their captive air and at last allowed a semblance of relief. A relief tainted by guilt and grief.
"Wes," Dana said softly. "I'm so sorry."
But the Silver Guardian shook his head. "No, you were right to stop me," he agreed. "And besides, if anyone would be okay after that, it's Jen and Carter."
It meant Benson was likely fine as well; if "fine" was the best word for it. Jen may have been vocal about her dislike of the programmer's inclusion, but there was no way she'd let him fall on her watch. And from everything Kyle knew about him, neither would Carter. The man was in safe hands.
Again, however; safe was relative.
As Kyle and Dana kept watch on their ends of the alley, Wes tried the coms. "Jen? Come in, Jen?"
Nothing, not even in Kyle's earpiece. All he could hear now was buzzing static.
"They must be jamming us," Kyle realized. "Blocking our communication to stop us coordinating or regrouping."
"But why only now?" Dana asked. "Our coms were working perfectly before, why did they wait to stop them?"
Kyle shared a look with Wes, both men nodding in confirmation of their shared, sinking realization. "They knew we were coming," Kyle concluded. "Or at least that someone was."
"They wanted us to get deep into the base," Wes agreed. "So deep we couldn't pull out."
"And letting us keep our coms would stop us suspecting anything's up," Dana finished. "Help lure us into a trap."
"I'm an idiot," Wes hissed. "I should have known something was wrong the second our scanners got blocked. Our coms are based on 31st-century tech as well. If they could block one, then of course they could block the other!"
But Kyle knew the blame was equally shared. They all saw the warnings going in, all saw the surprising advances in technology on a supposed 21st-century base. And they all ignored them because they didn't have a choice. Because time was running out.
"Wes," Kyle insisted. "This is on all of us, but we can beat ourselves up later. With Jen MIA and the Timeship out of reach, you're the senior officer now. What's the order?"
Hissing in deeply, Wes' face slowly faded from panic and anger to a stern expression of resolve. Kyle didn't even want to imagine what was running through his head, how much he was fighting every instinct to run back into the depot looking for the woman he loved. But he couldn't, not now. The mission was in his hands, and the fate of the world lay upon them.
It was what Jen would have wanted.
"We've been running around in the dark, and that needs to stop," Wes decided. "Whoever's in charge here, they're connected to our fight with Ransik in Silver Hills eight years ago, as well as our mission to the moon a year later. The Cyclobots, the giant robots, their ability to counter tech from the year 3000? It can't be a coincidence. So, we need to find out more."
"But what can we do?" Dana asked. "We don't know our way around here."
"She's right," Kyle agreed. "And if they were lying in waiting once, they might have a way of tracking us. We might be hidden for now, but we can't rely on it for long."
Wes nodded, more an acceptance of the odds and flat agreement. "Our priority has to be making contact with the Timeship. If we're going to need reinforcements, then we need to be able to signal them. This base has aircraft defenses, we need to deal with those too. Otherwise, even if we can achieve our main objective, our evac will be a real short trip."
"So, what's the play?" Kyle asked.
"Get to higher ground," said Wes. "Get the lay of the land and make a plan from there. Let's go."
Just as they had before, they returned to slinking between the buildings. The sun was starting to set, growing the shadows that stretched from the structures, reaching like they were being dragged to the horizon with the falling star. Soon they found a ladder, a maintenance railing used to fix the roofs. Dana covered from the bottom as the two men ascended first, and soon the trio were lying flat on the surface and surveying the base surrounding them.
Kyle hadn't had a chance to truly appreciate it from their ariel scans, and all other sights he'd taken in were either as they'd slunk around or from peeks beneath the belly of the truck. But up here, with the trio pressed flat against the roof and staring out at concrete sprawl, Kyle truly appreciated just how extensive everything was.
He'd been on bases before, and during his time attached to Project Digitizer, he'd become quite familiar. But this was a whole new level. Easily three, if not four times the size of anywhere else he'd been, Area 51 stretched in all directions, as far as it needed while enjoying the natural protection of the rising mesas to its west. Sunbleached concrete rolled like faded carpet, blanketing the ground to cover as much as its occupants needed. Everything else in all directions was barren, lifeless desert.
They really were alone, out in the middle of nowhere with no backup coming. The perfect place to hide, to do whatever they wanted. Over by the gate, the smoke was beginning to lessen, fading as the sky behind them melted into a dusty auburn. Kyle held hopes that the lessening destruction had allowed Eric to withdraw, but a stifle from Dana sank them just as quickly.
"Look!"
Kyle and Wes shot their eyes to where she pointed, hissing with bated breaths as the convoy of trailered vehicles rolled along the main drag, towing a lashed and battered Quantasaurus Rex.
"Dammit!" Wes hissed. "So, they've got Eric."
Kyle was already scanning, whipping out the binoculars on his belt in hopes of finding their comrade. He found him quickly; a large group of Cylcobots, marching in perfect formation and dragging the unconscious, demorphed Quantum Ranger toward a large, concrete dome. As they entered, others filed out, forming a tight ring around the entrance.
"No way we're getting in there," Wes said bitterly as Kyle handed him the binoculars and showed him. "I should never have helped convince Jen to let him do it alone."
"He's down," Dana conceded. "But he's not out. I wouldn't be able to assess until I got to him but, the sooner we get to him the surer I can be."
Kyle looked at the timepiece on his wrist, the red counting digits now down to 02:45.
"Wherever they're taking Eric," Kyle pointed out, "there's a good chance that other prisoners are being kept there too."
"But you said K is working here," Wes replied. "The only reason they'd be taking Eric to a lab is if…"
Wes trailed off, eyes narrowing as he caught Kyle's drift. A thought he hadn't wanted to voice aloud, and clearly Wes didn't either. In a place like this, once Eric was their prisoner, experimentation could well be close behind.
"We need to get to him," Wes agreed. "And fast. But that still doesn't fix our problem with the entrance. They've got Cyclobots crawling all over it and it looks like there's only one way in."
"We could cause a diversion," Dana pointed out. "We packed some remote charges up in the Outpost One armory. We could set them to blow and charge in when they all go running."
Kyle nodded in agreement, peering through the binoculars for a good location. Dana was right, a diversion could do the trick, and with that many guards, the building had to hold something important. Although even then it was likely to only thin the numbers. Time was short, ticking down the longer they waited. They were still running blind when they needed to start acting. They needed to either make a move or start cutting objectives from their lists. Or cross two off at the same time.
It was only as Kyle looked in the other direction that the idea hit him. Atop the building on the other side of the silos, the aircraft batteries they'd originally spotted pierced the sky, aimed high in waiting like a proud general parading for their troops.
"You know," he pointed out with a mischievous grin. "Given that we need to deal with those guns anyway, I think I might have an idea."
-3 hours to Judgement Day-
The robot detonated, and the entire catwalk shattered. Kyle could only helplessly watch as half their team was thrown from the exploding gantry; Benson, Jen, and Carter all tossed like rag dolls to plummet into the abyss below. Time slowed, flames blossoming in pushing force that flung them from their feet, their bodies almost unresponsively floating as the enveloping void consumed them.
And then they were gone.
"NO!" Wes screamed beside him, reaching out on instinct as Dana snapped out a hand to hold him back. Kyle was thankful she did; he'd have no hope in stopping the Red Ranger unmorphed. And then they'd be down another member while still neck-deep in the fire themselves. They needed to get out, then they could determine what to do. Wes resisted Dana's block, but only for a moment, desperate to push past and follow.
"Wes!" Dana said sharply. "We can't help them now, and we don't know they're gone!"
The Red Ranger stopped his resistance, pausing for a moment to look back at the pink rescue ranger. Then Wes nodded.
"You're right," he said, voice resigned and regretful. "Jen would want me to continue the mission."
"Which right now means getting out of here," Kyle butted in. "Or else the next thing to explode might be us!"
But where to was still the question. The Cyclobots continued to come at them, surging from their gantries to push them from the stairs. With the catwalks behind them blown, the robots were upping the pressure, forcing them closer to the same drop that had swallowed their comrades. For all their efforts to stop Wes from leaping after, they could well be joining soon.
They needed an out, and they needed it now.
"Jen said she'd planned to blow her way out," Wes decided. "Looks like the Cyclobots did it for us. Get behind me!"
Dana swung a mighty punch, slamming into a Cyclobot's chest to send it flying into its bunched-up comrades. Grabbing the railing, she flipped around, swooping behind Wes as Kyle opened fire to keep the henchmen back and the Red Ranger leaped and somersaulted to the front.
"Red Battle Warrior!" Crimson light surrounded him, armor of red and gold flashing over his form as a pair of fiery wings erupted from his back. "Grab on!"
Wes barely waited for them to comply, the pair grabbing tight as he suddenly rocketed upwards. He tried nothing fancy, shooting straight for the hole in the warehouse as Dana awkwardly reached around for the device on her wrist.
"Thermo Blaster!" she called, a large pistol flashing to her hand. "Booster Mode!"
The pistol extended into a rifle, barrel glowing as Dana set the power to max and unloaded. The sizzling bolt ribboned across the open sky, expanding outwards into a thunderous flame that crashed into the gantry. The explosion rocked the building, Cyclobots and debris flying in all directions as the remaining structure groaned to stay upright.
With the smoke rising behind them, Wes swooped in low.
"On my mark," he ordered. "Drop and demorph!"
The second command was more for Dana than Kyle, but he got ready all the same. The trio plummeted to the ground, soaring to a gap between the buildings as the explosion covered their escape.
"NOW!"
It was as if every gravitational force Kyle had ever relied on was pulled from beneath him. The jolting at Wes's jerked direction, the falling from the release, his feeble attempts to reposition as Kyle's feet hit the cement and pulled him into a roll. Beside him, Dana's Ranger suit flashed as the pink light retreated into her Morpher, reappearing in her orange lightspeed jacket while Wes powered down to his fatigues in a crimson burst.
As the trio landed, they slunk to the wall, praying the base's forces would be too focused on the explosion behind them to fan out in search just yet. So instead, they waited, huddled behind a stack of crates, their hearts pounding so hard that Kyle swore he could hear them all. A wait so long his lungs were threatening to explode, and yet daren't release his breath. A wait that felt like an eternity.
At last, Wes made the call.
"I think we lost them," he decided, as they collectively unleashed their captive air and at last allowed a semblance of relief. A relief tainted by guilt and grief.
"Wes," Dana said softly. "I'm so sorry."
But the Silver Guardian shook his head. "No, you were right to stop me," he agreed. "And besides, if anyone would be okay after that, it's Jen and Carter."
It meant Benson was likely fine as well; if "fine" was the best word for it. Jen may have been vocal about her dislike of the programmer's inclusion, but there was no way she'd let him fall on her watch. And from everything Kyle knew about him, neither would Carter. The man was in safe hands.
Again, however; safe was relative.
As Kyle and Dana kept watch on their ends of the alley, Wes tried the coms. "Jen? Come in, Jen?"
Nothing, not even in Kyle's earpiece. All he could hear now was buzzing static.
"They must be jamming us," Kyle realized. "Blocking our communication to stop us coordinating or regrouping."
"But why only now?" Dana asked. "Our coms were working perfectly before, why did they wait to stop them?"
Kyle shared a look with Wes, both men nodding in confirmation of their shared, sinking realization. "They knew we were coming," Kyle concluded. "Or at least that someone was."
"They wanted us to get deep into the base," Wes agreed. "So deep we couldn't pull out."
"And letting us keep our coms would stop us suspecting anything's up," Dana finished. "Help lure us into a trap."
"I'm an idiot," Wes hissed. "I should have known something was wrong the second our scanners got blocked. Our coms are based on 31st-century tech as well. If they could block one, then of course they could block the other!"
But Kyle knew the blame was equally shared. They all saw the warnings going in, all saw the surprising advances in technology on a supposed 21st-century base. And they all ignored them because they didn't have a choice. Because time was running out.
"Wes," Kyle insisted. "This is on all of us, but we can beat ourselves up later. With Jen MIA and the Timeship out of reach, you're the senior officer now. What's the order?"
Hissing in deeply, Wes' face slowly faded from panic and anger to a stern expression of resolve. Kyle didn't even want to imagine what was running through his head, how much he was fighting every instinct to run back into the depot looking for the woman he loved. But he couldn't, not now. The mission was in his hands, and the fate of the world lay upon them.
It was what Jen would have wanted.
"We've been running around in the dark, and that needs to stop," Wes decided. "Whoever's in charge here, they're connected to our fight with Ransik in Silver Hills eight years ago, as well as our mission to the moon a year later. The Cyclobots, the giant robots, their ability to counter tech from the year 3000? It can't be a coincidence. So, we need to find out more."
"But what can we do?" Dana asked. "We don't know our way around here."
"She's right," Kyle agreed. "And if they were lying in waiting once, they might have a way of tracking us. We might be hidden for now, but we can't rely on it for long."
Wes nodded, more an acceptance of the odds and flat agreement. "Our priority has to be making contact with the Timeship. If we're going to need reinforcements, then we need to be able to signal them. This base has aircraft defenses, we need to deal with those too. Otherwise, even if we can achieve our main objective, our evac will be a real short trip."
"So, what's the play?" Kyle asked.
"Get to higher ground," said Wes. "Get the lay of the land and make a plan from there. Let's go."
Just as they had before, they returned to slinking between the buildings. The sun was starting to set, growing the shadows that stretched from the structures, reaching like they were being dragged to the horizon with the falling star. Soon they found a ladder, a maintenance railing used to fix the roofs. Dana covered from the bottom as the two men ascended first, and soon the trio were lying flat on the surface and surveying the base surrounding them.
Kyle hadn't had a chance to truly appreciate it from their ariel scans, and all other sights he'd taken in were either as they'd slunk around or from peeks beneath the belly of the truck. But up here, with the trio pressed flat against the roof and staring out at concrete sprawl, Kyle truly appreciated just how extensive everything was.
He'd been on bases before, and during his time attached to Project Digitizer, he'd become quite familiar. But this was a whole new level. Easily three, if not four times the size of anywhere else he'd been, Area 51 stretched in all directions, as far as it needed while enjoying the natural protection of the rising mesas to its west. Sunbleached concrete rolled like faded carpet, blanketing the ground to cover as much as its occupants needed. Everything else in all directions was barren, lifeless desert.
They really were alone, out in the middle of nowhere with no backup coming. The perfect place to hide, to do whatever they wanted. Over by the gate, the smoke was beginning to lessen, fading as the sky behind them melted into a dusty auburn. Kyle held hopes that the lessening destruction had allowed Eric to withdraw, but a stifle from Dana sank them just as quickly.
"Look!"
Kyle and Wes shot their eyes to where she pointed, hissing with bated breaths as the convoy of trailered vehicles rolled along the main drag, towing a lashed and battered Quantasaurus Rex.
"Dammit!" Wes hissed. "So, they've got Eric."
Kyle was already scanning, whipping out the binoculars on his belt in hopes of finding their comrade. He found him quickly; a large group of Cylcobots, marching in perfect formation and dragging the unconscious, demorphed Quantum Ranger toward a large, concrete dome. As they entered, others filed out, forming a tight ring around the entrance.
"No way we're getting in there," Wes said bitterly as Kyle handed him the binoculars and showed him. "I should never have helped convince Jen to let him do it alone."
"He's down," Dana conceded. "But he's not out. I wouldn't be able to assess until I got to him but, the sooner we get to him the surer I can be."
Kyle looked at the timepiece on his wrist, the red counting digits now down to 02:45.
"Wherever they're taking Eric," Kyle pointed out, "there's a good chance that other prisoners are being kept there too."
"But you said K is working here," Wes replied. "The only reason they'd be taking Eric to a lab is if…"
Wes trailed off, eyes narrowing as he caught Kyle's drift. A thought he hadn't wanted to voice aloud, and clearly Wes didn't either. In a place like this, once Eric was their prisoner, experimentation could well be close behind.
"We need to get to him," Wes agreed. "And fast. But that still doesn't fix our problem with the entrance. They've got Cyclobots crawling all over it and it looks like there's only one way in."
"We could cause a diversion," Dana pointed out. "We packed some remote charges up in the Outpost One armory. We could set them to blow and charge in when they all go running."
Kyle nodded in agreement, peering through the binoculars for a good location. Dana was right, a diversion could do the trick, and with that many guards, the building had to hold something important. Although even then it was likely to only thin the numbers. Time was short, ticking down the longer they waited. They were still running blind when they needed to start acting. They needed to either make a move or start cutting objectives from their lists. Or cross two off at the same time.
It was only as Kyle looked in the other direction that the idea hit him. Atop the building on the other side of the silos, the aircraft batteries they'd originally spotted pierced the sky, aimed high in waiting like a proud general parading for their troops.
"You know," he pointed out with a mischievous grin. "Given that we need to deal with those guns anyway, I think I might have an idea."