<<< To See a Tool Made a Weapon, [X-Corp]

[Kavita Rao]

Following the events of Inbound

---

Munch's team had made a rush for the outbound control deck. She had no clue if he'd made it, and she didn't have time to dwell. The lifts were running, and that meant only one of two things; either help was on the way or these gun-toting maniacs were about to get reinforcements.

With the subjects safely tucked away and defended, she'd ventured out. To activate the things that needed activating, they'd need proper clearance, and that meant two Red-Level clearance members of staff, the only two of which remained were her and the Ukrainian Security Chief. He hadn't liked it, but it was her research they were after, and she'd be damned if she didn't do what she could to stop them.

The last transmission she'd received had been just before the shooting upstairs started. When it stopped, she felt a cold shiver creep up her spine, as if fates fingers strumming the keys of her fears on up her back.

Rao poked her head around a corner. She had a pistol, one that she didn't even know how to use; Munch had insisted she take it. Holding it in a shaking hand, she turned the corner, pointing it this way and that way without any sort of intent to fire. She just hoped it would give the men here pause enough for her to turn tail and get away. Luckily, she found nobody, and as she approached the front of the base, she heard the door's gears grind into motion as it opened, the blast of cold air from outside mingling with the heated corridor and giving her an instant case of the sweats.

Darting to one side, she covered her mouth to silence her breathing. What if these were more of these jack-booted neanderthals? She was doomed.

Leaning very carefully around the enbankment, she caught a glimpse of them. Red and White, the colors of rescue, it seemed. If these were more of these so-called Sons of Genesis, they had grievous dress-code violations to deal with. Upon closer inspection however, she caught a better luck. Several young looking people, one looking positively dead and then, amidst the more adolescent of the troupe, stood a familiar face.

"James Bradley." She said in a hushed tone as she swung out from hiding, a sigh of relief escaping. "Shouldn't you have an army or-or something? Where are the proper authorities? I need rescuing, not a group of kids to lecture!"

Doctor James Nicola Bradley was here. She was doomed.

[Doctor Nemesis]

Just like every other time he entered a fortified mountaintop complex with an unknown number of enemy agents, Nemesis came in with guns drawn and held level. Anything that moved the wrong was was going to get so filled with fluids and enzymes. He and the rest of the Corp on this mission may not have been the most offensively heavy hitting, but they were ideal for infiltration. Dead Girl was literally and figuratively as silent as a ghost and could phase through doors. Lodestone could peer into and control the electromagnetic spectrum, allowing him to spot enemies, remove their weapons, and even take out any cameras or security they might encounter.

Basswave was could sense everything not them in a comfortable radius, keeping them ahead of the opposition. Plus she was a pretty face and could maybe seduce them into surrender. Mitch could turn into goop...he was sure that was useful in some way besides being a bullet shield. And finally there was him, Doctor Nemesis...the best of the group in so many ways that beyond mere explanation. His parka hood was removed and he made sure his fedora was as impeccably placed as ever before getting serious about the mission again and taking a few more steps into the complex.

Luckily the Sons weren't smart enough to post door sentries just in case someone came to pay them a visit; then again, they didn't seem that smart at all from what he knew...just determined and in possession of automatic firearms. His eyes red-shifted again as he attempted to get a quick scan of the entryway. The cold air from outside blanketed everything and made his sight useless, or so he thought. He was about to turn back to the others a humanoid blob of oranges, reds, greens and yellows stopped around the corner. He could also make out the shape of a pistol, but a singular scout was of no match for them, and would swiftly be shot in the facial region when she stepped around the corner to reveal herself.

When she did, his finger was squeezing the trigger as she said his name. He knew who this woman was, but he almost squeezed the trigger anyway. She'd never called him back after that last time. "Kavita Rao." His twin hypo pistols were lowered and a somewhat smile showed under his surgery mask. "Well excuse us for not having a direct line to the Nepalese Army's help me hotline.. Now that we've found you though, we can just dial 411. I'm sure they'll put us right through to the desk of Nepalese President and Supreme Military Commander Ram Baran Yadav. I'm sure after a quick chat with him, the NA will send a squad or two up on the next VTOL."

He holstered his guns and fully removed his outside gear. "That was sarcasm by the way; I'm not even sure Nepal has VTOL's." He pointed back to the rest of the team without looking. "As for them; they may not be professionally trained, but they have their uses. A necromantic zombie, a walking sonar with a acceptable B-Cup and a pretty face, an unbelievably average and uninteresting Electromagnetic Manipulator and...well the curly haired one turns into a giant sentient mass of some sort of goo. Like Flubber, but pink." He put a hand on the side of his mouth and leaned close so he could whisper something to her. "And I don't think they could follow one of your lectures." He cleared his throat after that and turned to the others, gesturing his hand towards her. "X-Corp, this is the woman we're here to rescue." He'd never say it out loud, but he was glad to see her safe and sound.

[Mitchell]

Getting through the entrance turned out to be a lot less of a problem than Mitch had anticipated: no guards, no guns, no booby traps. That did not reassure him. Sure, it was possible that the Purifiers they were hunting (or whatever they were calling themselves) were just overconfident enough to assume that the two guards they'd posted with the rocket launcher could of course take care of any uninvited visitors, and hadn't bothered setting up a second line of defense. Or maybe they just didn't have the resources to spare, and the two goons Dead Girl had taken out were the only ones they didn't need for whatever purpose they'd had. That would be nice. And, hey, if they weren't expecting a mutant brigade coming after them, that kind of lackadaisical planning might even make sense; taking out the cable cars really would have neutralized a conventional assault force. The problem was, none of that explained why the door was opened for them, unless the Sons of Whatever were planning on surrendering, which Mitch somehow doubted. More to the point, it was also possible that X-Guard was being invited into a trap, which would explain it.

Neither was he mollified when he heard and scented someone clumsily stalking them. He was about to pull whoever-it-was out of hiding when she took care of that herself, turning out to be the same Dr.Rao they'd come here to rescue, who apparently got along with Dr.Nemesis just about as well as the rest of the team did. Which was saying a lot, although none of it was good. "Flubber," he echoed with irritation in his voice, then shrugged. It was better than Silly Putty, anyway.

"Nice t'meet you," he said, transitioning fully into goo form now that he was out of the cold. "Are you the only rescuee here, or have you got friends we should be keeping an eye out for?" Or in his case, a nose and an ear, but the principle was the same. "Wish we could just send you back to the safe base, but our friendly neighborhood terrorists blew up our transportation. Probably best if you stick with us." Which would also make it easier to keep an eye on her, which would come in handy if she turned out to be a plant of some sort. Remembering the trashed cable cars raised the question, also, of how any of them expected to get out. Presumably this storm wasn't a permanent state of affairs, and sooner or later it would be possible to get a helicopter in -- after all, they must have built the facility somehow -- but surely the Purifiers weren't prepared to wait that long. So what were they planning?

[Lodestone]

"Gun ahead. Maybe two, they must be close together," Edmund warned, feeling through the walls. He could feel their magnetic fields tugging on his senses just around the corner, and he made sure that he was the first one in front of the others. A hazy green hovered in the air before them. But, before any action was taken by either party, be it for offense or defense, the woman peering around the corner recognized them for what they were, something a little more than crazy nuts trying to kill them.

Well, at least that was the case for the good Doctor.

The doctor appeared fatigued, likely from the stress of suffering through this attack for days. How they managed to hide for so long was beyond him, but Edmund was sure it wasn't that simple. He wondered if the only reason they were alive is because they weren't mutants. Purifiers, those fanatic crazies that ruined who knew how many lives the day X-Corps was attacked, would have done her in the moment they noticed she had a mutation, had she one. To be human was to be ignored by the onslaught of prejudice, he supposed.

Edmund had no need to voice an apology about being a military force. While the whole guns and grenades thing probably worked in most situations, but this one was more volatile. A force of professionals couldn't have made it up here in a team larger than what they had and there was no way to tell how many people from the Sons of Genesis were still lurking in the halls of this mountain complex. Even now, Edmund didn't let his guard down, keeping a level eye down and around hallways, in the event any should try to stalk up on them.

Nemesis made their introductions and Edmund's brow fell flat. "The doctor forgot to introduce himself," Edmund snarked, though Rao already knew who Nemesis was. "An old man with a 'get off my science' complex who injects prune juice straight into the veins. But anyways," Edmund nodded to Rao. "Lodestone works, at least while on business."

"We still have one of the shuttles in working order, but I didn't look to see if the cables were still sound for a ride back. Doctor, what can you tell us about these people? We need to know a bit more than what we do. What are they after? Why haven't they found it? I don't think I want to know what sort of tests you're doing up here, but given the nature of being stuck up here alone, I gander it must be of some significance. Project 'Hope' doesn't sound like something people would actually be hopeful for, especially with these sort of people coming for it."

[Dead Girl]

As they moved in and made their way through the facility the corpse kept her translucent form, she couldn’t risk the cold affecting her limbs and slowing her down. She would be tangible when needed. For a moment she thought she’d have to as Doctor Nemesis raised his weapon of choice at a woman who seemed to have known him.

The Sergeant chimed in her head, talking as if everyone could hear him, ”Put the gun down, ya pansy ass.” He went on muttering about how in his day women were treated differently. Dead Girl responded, “In your day, sir, we didn’t have to worry about women trying to kill us.” He let out a sound which sounded like a sigh and grimly replied, ”I know.”

The blue hued girl normally talked out loud, and seemingly, to herself and without any shame. She didn’t hide the fact that she spoke to the dead, never hushed her voice or demanded attention. The dead were heard, by her. If there was a message to deliver, she would be the one to speak it for them. The living had a voice that would be heard.

The female doctor they were rescuing had plenty to say. “An army…” The corpse spoke softly. She flickered a glare at Doctor Nemesis when he ‘introduced’ them to the female Doctor. “I am Dead Girl…” Speaking after Mitchel and Edmund voiced their introductions. “We are the rescue.”

Moonbeam paused before looking off in another direction and saying, “But if you are in need of a more military solution I would not object to riding down the cable car and retrieving one for you.” She looked back at the Doctor with red hazed eyes, “But it’d be far easier if you came with us.”

The corpse was slightly irritable. The X-Corps team risked their lives, for an ungrateful woman who wanted a military force. It upset her to know that if she did not offer herself as bait for the Sons of Genesis her team would have been killed or injured. The Sergeant recognized her irritancy and spoke, ”Easy, Moonbeam…”

[Basswave]

Coming in from the cold, she wasn't the only one who noticed an incoming shape. Edmund was easily able to detect sources of magnetic energy, be it a field or anything as simple as a bobby pin. Well, she didn't know if that was exactly true, but he'd suggested it time and again, such as now, when he pointed out that a gun was situated just around a corner up ahead. Bradley had to see it was well, Mitch with his enhanced olfactory senses and she herself with her own power-set, well, seeing things is what she did best.

X-Guard was all about finding people. In this moment she realized that she had the perfect team for just that.

Deadgirl took note and as everyone chimed in she only nodded. "Guess we know who opened the door." Before the large thing could close behind them, however, the woman revealed herself, and, with a sigh of relief (despite a very shaky gun aimed at the lot of them; again, Ed was here), she came to realize that this was no sort of religious terrorist but instead quite the opposite. The raised ink on the print of her identity badge blustered into full three-dimensional view within her unique second sense of vision, and before Nemesis could begin, only a single word escaped her lips.

"Rao."

Nemesis took over from there, prattling off his own smarmy, smart-ass introductions, and with the woman doctor's less than pleased response, Hartley fought the urge to roll her eyes and let fly a scoffing huff.

Ed's snark towards Bradley nonwithstanding, he asked the right questions. While Kavita Rao did work for X-Corps Mumbai, this wasn't in any file she'd ever seen. Shapandur had made express that it wasn't being paid for by company money, but the truth of the matter was that, whatever the facts were, this woman was on company time. Not wanting to sound cold, she didn't voice it, but she still thought it. This was a P.R. shitstorm waiting to happen.

"Lodestone's right." She said, splitting her attention between the woman ahead and the murmuring Moonbeam. More often than not her one-sided conversations weren't anything overly important, but sometimes...

Stepping passed Polymer she shook her head. "You want an army you called the wrong people. This sorta thing isn't on your budget, what the hell is going on here. Who are you working for?"

Rao looked to her, to the others, and shook her head. "Project Hope is a private project funded by a private collective of investors, I'm not at liberty to discuss who or what it is, only to express the importance of keeping it out of these neanderthals' hands."

Basswave's face sank briefly but then it picked back up into an angry frown. "Well, then, sorry. We'll just head back the way we came and you can sit and play with your friends. Full disclosure, doc."

She looked to the others. "X-Corp. We're out. Radio the chopper." She bluffed as she turned back to the door."

[Kavita Rao]

"X-Corp. We're out. Radio the chopper."

As much as she wanted to deflect Edmund's questions, she couldn't risk losing the only way out of here, not when what was at stake was so close to slipping from her grasp.

"Wait!" She stepped forward, her voice cracking only momentarily from it's forced hush. "Wait. I'll tell you. But not here. They could send a patrol any time. Besides. You won't get that door open from here. Not without making a lot of noise." The gun hanging limp at her side still shook. She did not like weapons, but what she disliked more than that was seeing potential tools turned into them. In spite of her pride, she needed these people's help.

"The Security Director, Munch, he was making a push for the Control Room. We were separated, cut off. He's likely the one who opened the door for you."

Rao stepped forward, speaking just as much with her hands as she was through her words. "There are children here. I have them hidden but I don't know how long that will last. These gun-toting fools are here for my research, for Hope. I don't want to get too far into it now. This facility runs down deep into the mountains. It's how we've managed to stay hidden. Lots of laboratories and practical demonstration chambers. None of that matters, though, and none of it will if we don't stop them from getting into my Lab. That's why I'm alive. They need me to get in."

She turned to look back down the corridor. "My radio is broken but Munch said to meet him in the Atrium if we got separated. Come. Follow me."

She moved turned, moving down the corridor towards a side door. Waving her card in front of it, it slid open.

"That is good. It means Munch has gotten my access back online."

She disappeared into the stairwell, rough hewn stone wrapped around a metal mesh stairway.

Hartley fanned out her perception. The layout of the facility unfolding before her eyes. Blips here and there, blankspots as well; she assumed many of the labs would be shielded in various ways, but to totally block out her scanning mean that this place was into some pretty heavy tech.

"Let's go." Basswave said to the others. She didn't like this. Not one bit.

[Doctor Nemesis]

Nemesis had been professionally insulting people since before the "Roaring 20's", so he was no stranger to snapbacks. He also knew when to poke fun at himself(almost never, because that was just stupid) and when to let things go. This was one of those times, as they had people to save, and a job to do. "I'll have you know that mainlining prune juice is an excellent way to get a nice dose of antioxidants. Just drinking it is so passé."

The others went about talking to Rao differently; with Hartley coming to the conclusion that they wouldn't help a person who wouldn't tell them just what it was they were putting their necks on the proverbial chopping block for. He knew Kavita though, perhaps not as intimately as he'd never admit he'd like, but extremely well. If she was doing this in secret, there was a reason that justified that and her research, even if she couldn't or wouldn't divulge what the reason and research were. Of course, as she was the boss, Basswave's decision superseded the others, even his.

And while he could make a very convincing case in Rao's favor, it would take far too long and they'd just be wasting time. He had no choice but to go along with it, so he tipped his hat and turned. "Kavita." He stopped and looked back at Rao when she agreed to their terms; this time he smiled under his mask...this Project Hope sounded interesting. As it turned out, things were much worse than they'd assumed. On top of people being put in harm's way, and Kavita's research being used for nefarious purposes...children were at risk.

Even if they weren't mutants, they were still in the crossfire, and he'd come across enough people to know that these Sons of Genesis would more than likely kill everyone they could find so as not to leave loose ends. The good doctor was often in some sort of mood, often snarky, almost always dickish to everyone...but he was rarely angry. Now he was angry...Heaven help those who were subject to his sciency wrath. He didn't say anything as they headed towards the stair well, he just changed the ammunition he'd be firing. Concentrated doses of tranquilizer were too good for these men and women; no, they'd find themselves violently ill and paralyzed if they crossed his path. "Let's see who we can find."

[Mitchell]

The boss stepped past him to talk to their new friend, and things got more confusing rather than less. Apparently this "Project Hope" thing wasn't really an X-Corps project after all, at least not an official one, and Dr. Rao was being pretty evasive about whose project it was, exactly, and what it did. "A private collective of investors" could mean anything, or nothing, but under the circumstances Mitch didn't think it was likely to mean anything good for X-Corps. And apparently Hart felt the same way, as she ordered them to turn around the way they'd come. Guess we're gonna find out if the cables survived the blast, after all, Mitch thought, only half-seriously; he knew both Hart and this mission well enough to be pretty sure she was bluffing. He didn't let it show, though, turning around on what would have been a heel had he been flesh-and-blood at the time and heading back towards the entrance. "You got it, boss. Sorry, doc, you're on your own," he called over his shoulder.

Then Rao relented, and he turned back for an explanation... which didn't turn out to be much of an explanation, unfortunately, but still ended up telling them stuff Mitch didn't really want to hear. "Children?!?" he blurted out incredulously, then shut his mouth and let her speak. Privately, though, he began to wonder just what this woman and her staff had been up to here in the bloody middle of nowhere. Who exactly were these kids? Workers' families? Test subjects? Abominable snowbabies? Mitch wasn't ruling any possibilities out just yet.

Ultimately, though, he supposed it didn't much matter; his orders were the same either way. He nodded as Hart directed the team to move out, and moved fast and under cover to secure his sector of the facility. Ordinarily he wouldn't have worried so much about cover, as his goo form was damned near indestructable, but the last time he'd taken that for granted going up against Purifiers he'd ended up with a null-dart where the sun don't shine, and he wasn't about to make that mistake again.

[Lodestone]

Edmund was genuinely surprised that Hartley would take such dire action against the doctor. Even Edmund was perplexed, raising a brow as she called to leave and head out. But her bluff was true and turned the tables on the doctor, whom stepped forward to protest their abandoning of the mission. In a way, Edmund was glad. Having come all the way across the globe and not following through with the endeavor would have been a monumental waste of time. Still, he couldn't help but smirk at the success of Hartley's decision.

"We should get a move on, then," Edmund said flatly as the doctor talked in regards to moving. There was no time to waste. Sitting in the middle of a hallway is a place Edmund did not want to be caught by Purifiers. "And hope Munch is still alive. This place must be pretty big if you've managed to hide so long." Naturally, Edmund assumed there were multiple security levels. This being a super-science base, one would probably have to have the right authentication to have access to get into. Hopefully that would keep the Sons of Genesis from getting into Project Hope.

And then, Dr. Rao dropped a bomb. Children were being kept here. Children were being kept in a high-security facility up in the mountains of India where they were researching something called Project Hope.

If science fiction had anything to say about this, nothing good was going to come of it, and Edmund's earlier notion of something named Hope being used for something else was fortified even more.

But, he said nothing about it. He gave Hartley a long, serious look before Rao opened the door and they went through it. Reaching out with his perception of the electromagnetic field, he looked down. There was enough metal in this place holding it aloft that it was difficult to pick out what was what, but he could feel some of it moving. They were down there.

---

Dr. Rao led them down a few levels before anything happened. Two members of the Sons of Genesis were waiting on the fifth, but Edmund had dealt with them before they could be noticed by anyone but Hartley. Guns crushed and bent in their hands. Metal zippers and buckles were tugged and the men were thrown aside, thrashed against the hard stone walls of the compound. Tossed around a bit more, and they were pinned against the wall with their hands behind their hips with the metals of their weapons shattered on the ground beneath them.

One was unconscious, the other groaning and trying to figure out what happened. When the soldier of God saw them round the bend he made to yell, but a strap rose up around his mouth and bound him from making anything more than a loud moan.

"Nemesis. Science them so I don't have to taze them," Edmund said bluntly as he walked past them. Dr. Rao scurried ahead.

"The Atrium is here," she said, rounding the corner. Immediately conditions seemed to change. It was almost like they were walking into a greenhouse. It became noticeably more humid and the lights above were brighter, almost like the sun was shining inside of the mountain. There were plants everywhere, tall trees, flowering bushes, flowers in all sorts of colors. "The Atrium is effectively our greenhouse. We utilize the oxygen the plants produce to supplement the air from outside. Being so high in the mountains, oxygen levels decease with the altitude. This allows our brains to function as though we were at sea level. Munch should be--"

"Kavita!" a voice said, yelling in a hushed whisper.

The door geared open and a haggard man came out from behind a pillar of the Atrium. Half-bald and drained from lack of food and water, he looked like he was about to keel over, nearly drenched in sweat. "Glad to see you made it here alive. These must be the..." his eyes narrowed on them, catching the glowing of their eyes. "Muscle... that's come to rescue us. Been watching you all come down on the cameras. Come in, the lot of you, before those men and their guns come waddling back up the hallway."

He scratched the back of his neck nervously. "They're whipping out all the tech they brought, but so far our variable algorithms have prevented them from getting in even with that. But, we're running out of time. They're going to melt their way through the doors to get to the Project..." He coughed, looking through the Atrium. "We could go the back route... Down to the bottom level, then to the access ways. If we can get in before them, we can get out without a scratch."

Edmund listened to the electromagnetic waves around him, watching the man. He could feel radio chatter around them, but he couldn't divine the words. Glancing at some of the plants, he gently touched one of the flowers. Maybe he could grab one of these and bring it to Riva on the way out... After all of this.

[Dead Girl]

Moonbeam smirked when Hartley demanded the information from Doctor Rao. It didn’t matter to her if the other members felt it necessary or not, they needed to know what they were dealing with. The whole ‘on a need to know basis’ crap wasn’t going to fly, and not with Hartley either.

When the lady Doctor told them what information she knew, and that children were involved, Mitchell’s verbal reaction reflected her mental one. The corpse’s face grew grim and serious. There was very few things that made the blue hued girl’s dead blood boil when it was concerning the living.

Threats against her teammates, her friends. And anything, living or dead, that involved children. They were lead down to where the others were hiding. When they met up with a man, who informed them that the Sons of Genesis were melting their way through. With all of these words, the Dead Girl had two questions.

Two concerns. She first walked next to Edmund and asked in a lowered tone, “Are you able to tell if the Sons have null technology?” She knew he could speak to the metal, he could feel it. It was more than likely that they could, but she needed to know. She had to be one hundred percent positive.

And those children had damn well better be safe. If the female Doctor had hurt them, it wouldn’t matter to the Dead Girl if they were saving her or not. Oh yes, very few things angered the corpse of X-Corps.

[Doctor Nemesis]

He moved slowly and silently, but with purpose along with the others down into the bowels of the facility. Enemy presence was sure to be higher here, but so far they hadn't come across anyone; lucky for the Sons. He was still in a bit of a mood about learning of the children, and didn't want to be held accountable for any horrible and creative action he took against them. He didn't bother extending his ocular senses and trying to find any baddies as they went down; Ed could sense their weapons and Hartley could see them no matter where they were or what they were doing, so why bother?

After several floors, they came across a pair who Ed had seen fit to preemptively fuck up, as the young people said. They were thoroughly thrashed and while one was unconscious, the other was still aware of his surroundings. Ed had a bit of quick thinking and gagged him with a band of metal. The request to "sceince" them was one he was only too happy to oblige; at this point though, "science" was a very broad term and he usually just went with what felt right at the time. One of his pistols was drawn and spun around like he came straight from a cowboy picture before a dart was nearly silently launched into the moaning man's neck.

His eyes shut and he slumped to the floor instantly. Another dart was shot into his chest, and then one into his friends back and he kept going. "They'll be out for at least 12 hours...or a few days. I forget which mixture I'm using. And you could still taze them...you know, if you felt so inclined...seriously, I wouldn't complain at all." As they continued, both men, now unconscious simultaneously lost control of their bowels; he was such a Science Bastard. He listened to Kavita explain things for everyone who wasn't him; a bit absentmindedly really. He was only drawn to attention when a hushed voice harshly whispered her name.

A gun was drawn and pointed at the source, and he couldn't hide his disappointment when it turned out to be the security chief; because he couldn't shoot him. He scoffed when the man showed a bit of unease at them being the only rescue they were getting. "I'll have you know, Munch...I was punching Nazi crotches before your dad even made it to second base. This team is plenty of muscle...except Ed; he doesn't exercise much."

He was joking with Edmund of course, and he fully expected a barb in return, and so it would go on Ad infinitum until they were done with this mission; he hoped. He really listened this time as Munch went over options, and while whatever the "Project Hope" was, and he was sure it was important. They could always make more technology or whatever it was; children were irreplaceable. He'd lost enough to hopeless injuries and illnesses to know that as fact. "Whatever we do, we make sure those children are safe, no matter where they are. And anyone who tries to hurt them gets a dose of a multiple Stage Four Cancer Cocktail." This was one time the doctor wasn't joking around; he was deadly serious and even Hartley's orders wouldn't keep him from dishing out justice.

[Mitchell]

With Rao guiding them and Ed clearing the path, getting to their target turned out to be a pretty trivial operation. By the time they'd reached the Atrium, Mitch had stepped down from his early state of alert and was moving a lot more casually. He was distracted briefly by the riot of color in the Atrium, plants and flowers and bushes, the first genuinely inviting environment he'd seen since they'd gotten on the plane on their way here. For a few minutes he considered revising his opinion of the folks who ran this place -- anyone who would devote the resources to maintaining a place like this in the middle of such an otherwise sterile environment couldn't be completely soulless -- then gave a disappointed sigh as Rao explained that it was intended as an environmental treatment plant. "Figures," he muttered. Then a door opened and half-dead looking man let them in, explaining the current tactical situation.

Munch also joined Rao in disparaging the quality of their rescuers, though he was admittedly more subtle about it, and Mitch rolled his eyes. Had these guys not been paying attention? Even on their own, Ed and DG could take this whole facility apart without half-trying; X-Guard might be more of a search-and-rescue squad than an elite combat unit, but they could hold their own in a fight. Besides, the Purifiers they'd run into so far hadn't been much of a threat to begin with. Which left Mitch wondering what the locals knew that they hadn't yet seen fit to share, and just how bad it would turn out to be. It also left him more than a little suspicious of Munch and Rao, as did the revelation about children in Project Hope: something about the way they talked about it made him suspect they didn't just mean the staff's family. So he decided to keep an eye on the two of them while the more Science-y folks tried to figure out what was going on.

"Glad to see we're all voting 'No' on children dying," he chimed in. "Cuz, you know, I'd been worried we'd maybe changed our official policy about that; y'all know I never read the meeting minutes. Assuming our usual 'thumbs down' rating on adults dying and psychopathic terrorists getting their hands on mysteriously dangerous technology also still holds, we should maybe get moving?"

[Kavita Rao]

As they spilled out into the Atrium, one of the facility's most impressive feats, she locked the access door behind them, the code rotating, giving them an extra layer of defense between anybody who could have followed.

Munch was quick to greet them, and she let out a long sigh of relief, burying her face in her palm as let the previous moments sink in. She sank to the floor and shook her head as Munch explained just how hopeless the situation is getting.

Everybody seemed ready to go, ready to throw themselves at these religious maniacs, and she shook her head, holding back sad streams in her eyes. Uncompromising religion, often times the worst enemy of science, seemed so keen on making it's greatest achievements into its most monumental shames.

"Before you go, no... before we go... I feel I owe you all more than I've been forthcoming with. I promised you the truth, and I suppose now there is no sense in hiding that."

"Rao! No."

"There is no matter of keeping a secret, Munch," She replied, "If we are not alive to keep it."

She pulled herself to her feet, looking at the marvel that was this atrium. A large, circular, domed chamber, it housed plantlife that was wholly alien to this part of the world. Desert flora, things from the Amazon Rainforests' deepest depths. Beautiful things, a modern wonder of the world, though one kept secret from common knowledge. Fully sustainable micron-environments. It had been because of this room that they'd had what modicums of food and water they'd been able to attain in the time since the Purifiers took over, though even harvesting what they could from this place had become dangerous.

She turned to them all, pensive. "Project Hope is a unification of myself and other scientist to..." She bit her lip; all her colleagues were dead now, exterminate when they'd outlived their usefulness. "It is a prototype for a... a cure. A way to permanently augment and stabilize the 23rd chromosome and rid a given subject of it's mutant powers. We were not just experimenting with children, we were... experimenting with volunteers. It's just the children I could save. They were my fist priority."

She looked to them all, fearful for their response. "They are all willing, it's very important that you understand this. These men and women have horrific twists in there genomes. Terrible, debilitating conditions that nobody should be forced to live with, and with a simple series of injections we have a hypothetical way to rid them of their problem. You have to see the nobility in that."

Her shoulders sank again. "But these... these bastards who've come here, they only want it for war. To weaponize it. To force it on people. That is not what I am here for..."

She was crying at this point, burying her face in her hands. "I'm- I'm so sorry."

[Basswave]

As they followed Rho ever downwards, she was increasingly grateful for Ed's presence. His attunement to metals could likely read the structure of this place far better than she could right now. As her field pulsed outwards, things were garbled, full of static. It could have been anything to the geological competition to the metal that they'd used to build the actual structure.

"My second sight is really dampened around here." Was all she'd said before they'd turned the corner on the set of terrorists, Lodestone's handiwork already visible. She didn't look as Nemesis shot them; even though it wasn't a bullet, or lethal, that brought back too many memories.

Once inside the atrium they seemed to regroup, though to hear Munch tell it that meant little if anything at all.

Then Rao dropped her little bombshell and Hartley's stomach twisted into knots and she took a step back shaking her head.

"All while on our payroll... are you fucking insane?"

She didn't yell, no, she wasn't much of a yeller. Her voice had that impartial but disappointed tone to it. "You're sitting here telling me that while you're working with us, while we're trying to pull mutants out of hot water, to show the world that we're not the boogeymen they want us to be, you're working on a way to goddamned exterminate us?!"

This was unbelievable. Completely unbelievable. Forget the public blowback this could cause. The Moral ground of it was so shaky and full of cracks she was afraid to put her foot down.

"Not Exterminate!" Rao said. "We're trying to help those who have debilitating mutations, men with bones that are steel hard and fused together to the point of immobility! A woman who hears things so acutely that the sound of a breath from across the room could rupture her eardrums! We're here to help people!"

"Tell that to the men in hoods who want your help for a weapon!" She spat. "Jesus Christ on a crutch."

She took a few pacing steps around the Atrium's walkway. This was so, so incredibly bad.

Rao shook her head. "It doesn't work."

"What?" Hartley said.

"It doesn't work. In fact, the most recent version is... negligible in it's helpful effects. We barely even got it out of formula. The 23rd chromosome's wild radicals are neutralized yes but then... it... begins a systemic breakdown of the subjects DNA."

"I don't know what that means..." Hartley said, though she knew it didn't sound good.

"It means," Rao said, "that withing a week of injection the subject's genetic material begins to break down, their cells lose the ability to replicate..."

"Meaning..."

"Death..." Rao said, with a startling finality. "That is why they want it. It disables mutation, and then... slow death. Irreversible."

"Oh... my god." Hartley looked at her team. "We have to destroy it, we can't let them get their hands on it.