– Midtown –
As the sun completed its descent below the horizon, New Haven was blanketed in the darkness of evening. Lina used the dark to her advantage as she skirted quickly through the edge of Midtown, taking the utmost care to stay out of sight. Fortunately for her, the authorities had not noticed her leaving the scene with the duffel bag and, therefore, hadn’t given chase. She had dropped from the rooftops to street level a few moments back, and was holding down a low profile while moving hastily toward the Warehouse district. The Underground had a few safehouses tucked away in the area for her to lay low, though neither of them were current destination. She had actually carved out her own little hideaway a while back to serve as ‘base of operations’ when she needed it. In fact, Lina had a few of these around town, her main one actually being closer to Bywater. It would have taken much longer to backtrack to her primary headquarters — especially with her recently acquired cargo— so she decided to go with her alternate quarters.
As the evening grew steadily darker, Sear began to move toward the less occupied part of the Warehouse district. The lighting was much more sparse which deterred many people from passing through or hanging around. She eventually arrived at an old, long-abandoned textile mill. The doors and windows had been boarded up or sealed off, and there didn’t appear to be a way to enter the building on ground level without breaking in. Of course, that wouldn’t have been an issue for Sear, but she preferred to keep up the appearance of the building being unoccupied. A catwalk stretched across the upper level of the building on one of the outside walls, but the stairwell leading up to it had completely collapsed making the catwalk inaccessible from the ground. Scaling buildings was a breeze for Sear, so she surveyed the area to make sure she was alone and made her way up the side of the wall by using a pair of superheated knives as makeshift handholds. She vaulted over the side of the railing of the catwalk once she reached it and landed with a light metallic thud. Even though the stairs had been long gone, the platform itself had managed to stay relatively intact; it also helped that Sear had taken the liberty of reinforcing the welds and replacing some of the more rusted metal. The catwalk actually led to a couple of offices on the upper level that overlooked the rest of the factory floor. She hadn’t bothered to block or lock the office doors since they were rather difficult to get to without Variant abilities or just sheer climbing ability. Lina glanced around once more before entering one of the offices and carefully closing the door behind her.
The power to the mill had been disconnected ages ago, so the building was nearly pitch black on the inside. Lina gave her right eye a few moments to adjust to the lack of light before making her way down the steps to the ground level. Her eyepatch had night vision integrated into it, so she didn’t have a need for a flashlight. She weaved her way through the machines covered in years worth of dust and grime until she came to a certain one near the middle of the factory floor. She grabbed one of the wheels of the machine and turned it in a sequence of clockwise and counterclockwise movements mimicking a combination lock until a mechanical sounding click was heard. The machine actually served as a secret entrance to a subterranean hideout that Lina had constructed underneath the factory with the help of a few other members of the Underground. The floor underneath the machine shifted as it slid backwards to reveal the hidden ladder leading down into the hideout. Once she climbed down, the machine slid back into place over top of her, leaving her once again in darkness. She took a few steps forward through a short passage that opened up into the main room. As she entered the room and triggered the security sensors, the room was slowly illuminated with the warm glow of a few LED lights mounted into the low ceiling. To the immediate left was a decent-sized generator attached to what appeared to be a fairly large solar panel. The generator filled the otherwise silent room with a low electrical hum. In the far corner of the room, there was a small alcove with a sleeping pallet, surrounded by a few boxes of supplies and gear, and a small desk with a computer. A set of weapons had been arranged neatly near the pallet, within easy reach in case of an emergency. Against another wall was a long metal desk with several papers strewn about one half of it, most of which appeared to be hand-written notes. A map of New Haven decorated with several pins and markings hung on the wall above the desk. Lina tossed the duffel bag onto the desk and rolled her shoulders and neck, relieved that she could finally drop the weight. She walked over to the computer, powered it on, and performed a cursory diagnostic check on all her systems. The mechanism that controlled the hidden entrance didn’t require any immediate maintenance and her security systems appeared to be in good shape. Her generator, however, was reading at below half power as it had been a while since she came to this particular spot. Sear walked over to the solar panel and placed her hand directly on its surface. Her eye glowed bright orange as she released a flow of solar energy onto the panel’s cells and charged them until the meter read full. The panel and generator were sufficient to uphold the power needs of the secret base while also allowing it to run completely off the grid.
Once she was satisfied with the state of her lair, Lina proceeded to get down to business. She walked back over the duffel bag and unzipped it. ‘Case’ was probably a more appropriate term as it had a large foam insert inside specifically designed to carefully carry glass bottles. She removed one of the bottles and gave it an initial examination. The liquid inside was completely clear and the outside label seemed to be replaced with another that was totally blank except for a large red “X”.
Yeah, that’s not suspicious at all…
She was leery about opening the bottle and giving the contents a smell test, but she figured it was a necessary next step since she couldn’t identify the chemical from the outside. She slowly uncapped the bottle, raised to just underneath her nostrils, and gave the liquid a light sniff…
Odorless…of course…
They weren’t making this easy. Lina decided to try something slightly more effective before taking the chems to one of her connections for a proper identification. There had definitely been no shortage of lab break-ins by one group or another since the discovery of Variance, and Lina had the pleasure of ‘interrupting’ a few of them. Most of the time nothing really came of the encounter besides an arrest, but Lina had managed to swipe a couple of souvenirs for herself each time. She rummaged through her stash until she found a couple of such souvenirs: pH strips and a small dropper. She wouldn’t get much out of the test, but she figured it was a start. She made her way back to the table, carefully filled the dropper with the chemical and placed a few drops on a couple of strips that she laid down. After a few seconds, her brow furrowed in surprise.
”No fucking way…”
* * * * *
– Midtown –
The scene in front of the lab was pure chaos. The streets were crowded with rescued lab personnel, first responders, and several government agents. Onlookers were being kept in check by the authorities as they vied for the best angles for their Optica and Blabbr uploads. Numerous news drones littered the immediate airspace as they flew as close as they dared to the blaze. Despite the best efforts of the fire brigade, the fire remained barely contained.
After what felt like an eternity, a massive rescue vehicle barreled onto the scene with sirens blaring. It was a transport vessel for a small fleet of AI-controlled firefighting drones. The fireproof drones were quickly deployed and flew directly into the burning lab. The drones were basically flying fire extinguishers equipped with devices that dispensed a dry chemical cooling foam throughout the most critical parts of the inferno. As the building was systematically swept, the fire died down completely in a matter of minutes.
Even though the lab had suffered an incredible amount of damage, it wasn’t enough to condemn the building outright. It would, however, shut down the operation of the lab for several weeks for repairs.
– Midtown, near Lakeview –
As the events of the evening began to wind down, Michelle Collins paced calmly throughout ‘The Hive’ of Central Command at MAD HQ. Even though the entirety of the Scourge hadn’t been caught, it felt good to have at least a couple of them behind glass. It wasn’t a total loss and Michelle was proud of her team.
“You all did excellent out there. All teams report,” Michelle ordered.
“Noxia was apprehended after a bit of a fight, but Flea got by us. He also has the stolen chemicals from the lab. We still have drones out searching, but I doubt he’ll be found. He knows how to avoid them.”
“Never say never, captain…we’ll get him. Great job, Alpha Team,” Michelle knew how slippery Agile variants could be, but speaking negatively into any situation was against her personal and professional code. “How about you, Bravo Team?”
“Things got pretty heated here. The Scourge was already in the middle of a fight with a couple of vigilants when we arrived on the scene. Or perhaps they were here to rain on their parade, because the chemicals have not been recovered. According to Graffite, the one guy we did capture, the chemicals were taken from them by another Variant who’s probably long gone by now. Also, another Variant we hadn’t seen before came and scooped up Ruby before we could grab her. We’re assisting NHPD with the pursuit.”
“Godspeed, Bravo Team. Keep me updated.” Michelle cut the call and addressed the room. “Stay on, Bravo Team. We’ve had too many get away from us tonight. Let’s get it together, people.”