Evolve - Chapter 18 Chapter 18

You can picture a montage if you like, five months have passed since our sit down with O.R. and he stayed true to his word, he has been providing our ‘operation’ as he likes to call it with resources to everyone who’s under the banner of The Five. Guns and WECA tech weapons, training, leadership, gangsters, shelter, food etc.

I’ll admit it’s been tricky moving all that around to where it needs to be whilst staying under WECA’s radar at the same time, to be honest I’m not sure if we have been completely under their radar or if they’re just too busy getting ready themselves to pay attention to us because they assume they’ll just trample us.

Carla, Marc, Toni, Nicole and myself have been training regularly in the deserts of the world, in the middle of the ocean, basically wherever there’s a large stretch of nothing. My coolest achievement so far is I completed a round trip around the world recently in record time, superman style.

In that same amount of time I’ve been checking on my parents from afar like a creep just to make sure they’re okay.

And for the first time I have an actual true plan for a preemptive strike, thanks you months of recon, monitoring and information obtained by O.R’s connections as well as Winter and Janice working diligently.

Right now the seven of us (Janice and Winter included) are standing around a table looking at a blueprint for a WECA facility which I wany us to strike. This place is where supposedly one of their apparently many potent weapons of mass destruction is being held, in particular one that has been completed and we’re gonna hit it from there, depending on what we find, either we destroy it or we take it for our own use.

The facility is located in the French Alps beneath the surface, a portion of it is embedded in the mountains themselves.

From the look of the blueprints its got two levels the first one built like a curve on one end of it is the surveillance room and the other is the entrance to the elevator that heads down to the second level.

The second level is built like a dome with six smaller house like structures built into it, those are the laboratories, each one is behind a thick layered steel door to keep whatever they work on in. There’s six of those labs in total arranged in a circle.

Outside dead center designed to hang off the roof is a guard crow’s nest and a guard post right below it.

There’s a built in aircraft hanger with an opening for entrance on the surface. And according to the blueprint, the bit built into the mountains serves a residency of sorts.

From the information gathered over the last few months we’ve learned that security is tight, and potentially powered and slinging weapons.

All around the blueprints are notes and sketches for what I want us to do, details about the plan.

“Are you this will work?” Asks Marc looking up from the blueprints. He’s been growing his hair out and facial hair much like myself except my beard is stubbier.

“Yeah.” I reply with a sigh.

“Will it work?” Asks Toni

“Yeah,” replies Carla, “we’ve all gone through this plan it’s practically fool proof.”

“I know, I know. But run it by us one last time.” Says Toni turning his head to look at me.

“No problem.” I say.

“We’ve got two access keys, one for each team. Team 1 will have Marc and Carla, they’re going in first and they’re gonna go from the entrance, all the way to the data and surveillance room with Janice and Winter’s package,” I say tracing my finger on the blue print as I explain

“that will bring them online into the systems, they’ll be our eyes and ears from the accomodation near by. And we’ll all be in constant contact using these.” I say picking up the small black earpiece.

“With that that’s when Team 2 will move in, that’s me, Toni and Nicole by that point Team 1 should have gotten a key card that will get us all into the second level. Now all six of these rooms labs behind heavy duty steel and five of them have incomplete projects of theirs but one has what we need, the only problem is we don’t know which is which, although we won’t have the time try and get to everything we’ll definitely have to check everything and hope the luck of the draw is with us. We wouldn’t wanna get into a pinch unnecessarily but we will most likely end up in one, that’s when we’ll need to buy time to find whatever they’ve got and once we do we get the hell out of dodge.” I say

“Don’t forget the item you’re looking for is labelled NJU45.

“I still think we should set them back a few months and get to the others labs as well, break whatever’s inside” Says Nicole

“Maybe we should do that Terry.” Says Janice

“We can’t take the risk of getting caught whilist in there by backup which would surely come.” I say

“We’ve been training pretty hard, I reckon we could take them.” Says Marc

“Yeah but I don’t think we should be irrational or reckless, right now we’ll only fight when we have to.” I reply

The others go quiet.

“So Winter, Marc, Carla and I fly out tonight?” Asks Janice

I nod, “your flight leavs in a few hours. Nicole, Toni and I will hit the skies and meet you there.”

Everyone nods in agreement.

“I got that information you’ve been wanting.” Says Winter

My ears perk up because I’d asked to search for any signs of where Lerato and Jacob are because they have pretty much been off the face of the Earth for months, not even O.R has enough reach to find them.

“It’s not much, but I got a hit on the facial recognition. It’s a partial.” She says handing me a tablet.

On it is a picture of two hooded figures in stylish looking WECA uniform, there is one person who’s face in clear and that’s Euroc Carmichael. They kind of look like Lerato and Jacob, certainly the height is about right, if that is them then they’ve become his guards or confidants.

“When was this?” I ask

“It’s dated three days ago outside the Belgium WECA tower.” She replies

“Keep looking. I want us to deal with that next,” I say, “We’ve got four more months to chip off as much muscle off them as we can before the big one.”

Winter nods taking the tablet back.

“I’ve always wanted to go to the Alps, I really hope get to ice skate down hill.” Says Nicole.

“I’m going to pack.” Says Toni.

_______________

France is actually pretty awesome, the view from up here in the skies above the Alps is pretty amazing, a great place to wait in the darkness. It’s a bit cold to be honest but I’m dressed in warm black clothing but its not so bad, I also have the suit under my clothes. The others have done the same.

“Janice and Winter you should be in.” Says Marc through the earpiece

I don’t say anything, instead it’s better to wait for Janice and Winter to say something first.

“We’ve got eyes,” Says Janice, “you’re up Team 2.”

“Copy that.” I say, immediately smiling because I’ve always wanted to say ‘copy that’

I fly and land in the darkness just a small distance from the entrance, the entrance itself is a door which slopes downward as soon as a person enters. There’s no guard at the door, one can only enter by the key card I have in my hand.

Playing faintly through my earpiece is Led Zeppelin’s Since I’ve Been Loving You, which puts a smile on my face and makes me wanna start air guitaring.

“Who’s playing that?” I whisper

“It’s Winter. Is it distracting?” Asks Janice

“Not at all, keep it coming.”

The air shifts just behind me as Nicole lands, Toni reaches me and scoots down first whilst she transforms back from her dragon form.

Nicole taps me on the shoulder and I have the oddest thought in my head. How’d she look if she were just wearing the suit then changed in her dragon self, it oughta look pretty odd.

“Surveillance on the entrance is still out. You need to move now the guard below is on his rounds, you have about a 30 second window to go unnoticed.” Says Janice.

With me in the lead we run and tag the key card, the door instantly sinks downward revealing a short well lit set of stairs, which we take quickly arriving at the only elevator which fortunately is waiting for us.

We enter and it moves down rapidly and silently, coming to a slow stop before opening. Toni goes invisible as he exists although I can’t really tell what direction he’s gone, but sticking with the plan he must have gone right.

“Hallway’s clear,” he whispers through his earpiece.

Nicole and I follow turning right and moving fast.

The place is a lot bigger than I thought it’d look, high really high roofed, we’re running down a almost ridiculously wide curving hallway with every surface being pretty much grey. The floor shows marks of a cart’s wheels and I can hear one up ahead, our window is up.

Fortunately the roof up above has metal bits that look like catwalks and against the walls are some stacked locked carbon fibre boxes, I think the high ground is the better hiding spot.

Augmenting my strength I pick Nicoke up and fly to hide on one of the catwalks, Toni should be fine he’s invisible, besides he has a different objective.

The catwalk has thick cables strapped on it running on it but is also wide enough for Nicole and I to both lie flat side to side.

Sure enough the cart comes by with two armed peoole covered in sleek perfect fitting black uniform and a cart rolls through, they’re armed. As it passes below us one of them hops off and stands by the elevator doors.

Janice and Winter will have us covered from surveillance without necessarily messing around with it too much to get any unwarranted attention this early, wherever we aren’t they let the cameras run normally, where we are they don’t. Or at least that’s how they explained it to me.

“We can’t jump down from here, how far does this thing stretch?” I whisper through my earpiece.

“The cat walk you’re on will just about stretch around the corner.” Says Janice.

As silently as Nicole and I can manage we navigate the catwalk high above the ground and reach it’s edge, I look back and sure enough we’ve lost sight of the guard.

Nicole wraps her arms around my neck before I hop off then guide us to land on the floor gently then both of us instantly break into a run.

“Toni’s on his way to you.” Says Marc through the earpiece. Just as Nicole and I come around the bend to stand in front of a large mental gate labelled ‘E1′. The smaller people sized door swings open and Toni makes himself visible just beyond it.

“We’re in.” I say.

“We see you.” Says Winter.

Nicole and I step through the door with Toni closing it behind us. In front of us is a set of elevator doors, Marc and Carla are standing there as well, I give each of them a quick fist bump but don’t press for elevator just yet.

“This will get us through into three of the six labs. Fortunately there was a labcoat in the surveillance room.” Marc says

“Girls, what’s the situation below us?” I ask.

“Alright guys this is where it gets tricky, I’ll just run it down for you and you’ll decide what to do,” says Winter,

“The moment you exit that elevator there’s gonna be two guards waiting for you when it opens. Outside each lab there are two guards, inside of them it’s four posted inside. In the crow’s nest there are six gunmen watching everything outside from above, below in the guard’s post there are also six covering the ground. In total there are 28 guards, some if not all have abilities and obviously armed, whatever you have planned make it good.”

“Geez you’d swear they knew we were coming.” Says Toni.

“Alright guys, here’s what we’re gonna do.” I say

Then I proceed to explain my plan, because it would be a little boring to just say it as it, rather see it action right?

Having explained the plan I press for the elevator and it arrives quickly. Once inside we take the first formation, Carla and Marc Infront, Toni invisible in the middle, Nicole and I at the back.

The air becomes slightly colder as Carla lowers it a bit around her, Marc’s hands crackle with electricity.

The elevator opens, Marc and Carla pounce one moving to the left and one moving to the right, each of them catching the guards by surprise. Marc electrocutes his guard before shooting off the wall and kicking him in the face for good measure. Carla drops the temperature even lower and touches the guard freezing his head then smashing it against the wall.

Gun fire echoes through the air, right about now it should be Toni’s turn, he’s invisible but the bullets are stopped mid air and are shot back where they came, to those who fired them, the ones below duck but up in the crow’s nest the bullets bounce off a barrier of sorts.

Nicole is next, she’s transfomered and lifts into the air shooting fire balls at the the crow’s nest as she approaches it, the flames hit and curl around the barrier to no effect, with an angry growl she shoots toward it bounces off with a punch as she readjusts she catches a few bullets and she howls in pain as she falls.

My turn, I run and turning on my energy projection shaping up my arm into a spear sort of throwing form feigning aim at the crows nest before switching last minute to fire at the guards of the first lab, the energy shots connect and send them flying.

The guards in the guard post turn their guns to me but Marc shoots into right into their booth clearly his body crackling with an emense amount of electricity which he uses to boost his movements. A new improvement that he’d only shown me once.

With a massive blast of electricity he shoots set of waves from him constantly for a good three seconds.

Carla is thrown up into the air by Toni in an arch toward the crows, the air all around suddenly feels superheated but somehow I’m sure its worse way up there, an explosion goes off high above as the crow’s nest melts, with a yell Marc shoots up a column of electricity straight up and together the two of them absolutely fry the crow’s nest. All the while Toni is blocking bullets

A smile creeps across my face but it fades a bit as I feel an odd vibration beneath my feet.

Out of nowhere a silver elongated protrusion like a tentacle shoots up from below Marc and crashes into him hard send him flying, a second tentacle goes straight through the crows next and smacks Carla out of the air, I turn to seek the source and it’s two guards standing not far away with about six more of those silver tentacles protruding out from behind them.

Nicole moves for silver tentacles duo, rushing right past me, she’s no longer in dragon mode I’m guessing invulnerability. She jumps punch at the ready and silver tentacles duo doesn’t seem bothered by her charge, then another vibration shakes the floor and from out of the floor two guards literally break through it reaching her height and simultaneously punching her sending her flying back where she came right past me and straight in a wall.

They’re all dual power users, each of them in power pairs.

Two people are sent flying straight up and crash into the ceiling high above leaving red paintings up there.

A portal opens up in front of me, blink style and from it pops out two nimble people headed straight for me. They attack in flurry of strikes moving about as fast and agile as Marc would, if I didn’t have my strength augmented this would be a bit trickier. I throw a punch and miss then pivot to my left firing an energy shot from my foot as I do which one of my attackers barely dodges, the energy shot crashes into the lab door with a thump but shows no damage on it.

As soon as I get my footing right I jump thrusting a backward pump kick at the other attacker and putting up an energy wall to block a gun pointed at me by the other which is fired but the bullet reflects off my little energy and my kick doesn’t connect. In an instant Carla is in front of me bleeding from the head but delivering a couple of super speed punches and a skull freeze, my attackers crumple to the ground.

“Where’s Marc?” I ask, Carla nods toward the silver tentacles duo.

From what I can tell he’s switching between combining his electricity with his agility mixed in with his electrically charged super movement to occasionally switching on his intangibility as he fights the duo, whilst barely dodging some tentacle shots whenever he is tangible, but also getting hit by a few shots. He isn’t getting close enough to do them any damage.

Carla is hell bent on taking on those two power types, now in dragon form but she’s taking hits and she looks a little hurt, could be from the gun fire from earlier. She looks angry so that’s also good.

The last two guards, fire users, shoot flames at what to anyone who doesn’t know Toni is invisible would have been think air. But how could they be seeing Toni?

That’s when I notice the eye pieces they’re wearing, so that’s what’s helping them.

“Find that weapon, we’ve got this.” Says Carla. I glance down at her and she’s probably right but I gotta help out a little before I go.

So I lift off the air and shoot toward Marc and the silver tentacles turning on my strength augmentation then land in a semi slide landing then before breaking into a run then pivot in a unnecessarily complicated 360 flip spin thing letting energy shots rain from my arms and legs, I’m doing my best to aim for the silver tentacles duo but because I’m midair I eat a hit that I definitely see coming and I’m whiplashed into the floor hard getting the wind knocked out of me, thanks to strength augmentation I don’t feel it as much as I should, as I sit with a groan I watch through slightly blurred vision processing the pain with a smile, I know I’ve done the job because Marc is finally able to get close and he lands body shots on one then an electric kick for the other.

In an instant Carla is next to me helping me up.

“Alright point proven. Now go.” She says.

She zips away and joins Marc but surprising she can’t get close because some of the tentacles start to move ridiculously fast to keep up with Carla’s speed.

What are they made of?

Anyway better get going, I get up and reach the lab door tagging the key card and the massive doors open.

I turn on my energy and let it run wild throughout my body as soon as the doors have completely opened the guards inside are in formation and begin firing.

In an instant I release the energy letting it ripple in front of me to the point where it starts to blur my vision then I jump and pivot above the guards, their gunfire follows me upward. At the point where I’m right above them I release the energy and push it downwards sending it crashing into all four taking them out in a single movement.

Then I land on the otherside all cool like and look back to make sure no one’s getting up, they aren’t. Behind me I catch a glimpse lf everyone fighting, Toni has even taken down his invisibility.

I turn and the weapon isn’t hard to find. Partly because it’s smack dab in the center of the room and partly because it’s in a giant incubation chamber and also because the weapon is actually two, its Lerato and Jacob floating within the liquid of the chamber wrapped in what can only be described as giant green leaves. The label NJU45 is written on the top of the incubation chamber tank in big bold lettering.

I’m guessing this is where they’re kept when they aren’t with Carmichael, or maybe when they were spotted by Winter and Janice’s facial recognition they just happened to be out or maybe they wanted us to see that. Whatever the case the answers may be in those two’s heads as well as other info.

“You guys need to go. They have backup on the way, they’re about five minutes out.” Says Janice through the earpiece

Well not time to marvel or find an off switch then.

I charge getting as much momentum as I can muster then jump, augment my strength and punch the chamber glasse a couple of times. It shatters and the liquid within floods the lab short-circuiting some equipment. Lerato and Jacob land with a thump on the floor, neither of them moves.

“Can one of you be spared?” I ask through the earpiece.

“On my way.” Replies Carla, a second later she’s next to me. “Oh dang.” She says looking at Lerato and Jacob.

“Do we take them?” She asks

“I don’t know.” I reply

I don’t know if they can be turned to the side of good, honestly it might be better to just get rid of them.

The air next to me warms up as Carla takes a step towards them.

“No.” I say grabbing her immediately drawing back my hand in pain from getting burned by touching her.

“I’m sorry.” She says taking it and cooling it. “But why not?”

“We might be able to turn ’em. Grab Lerato she’s lighter.” I say not looking her in the eyes.. “Guys we’re heading out, collapse escape is in effect as of now.

With Jacob slung over my shoulder I fly out with the others close behind, the power duo, tentacles duo and fire duo on our tail.

Just as we’re reaching the elevator all five of us stop.

I go first by thrusting my hand high toward the ceiling and firing as a big of blast of energy as I can to knock a block of cement down, Toni does the same telekinetically. Carla and Nicole but up a wall of fire as Marc keeps our pursuers at bay with electricity.

The rest of run into the elevator leaving Carla alone in the hallway where she cools the air around her drastically and even with Toni’s telekinetic bubble around us I can still feel the intense cold outside. Shortly after she joins us and we shoot upward with the elevator.

On our way out we don’t bother with discretion, knocking out the guards with ease and making it outside.

Nicole is forced to carry both Marc and Toni to fly away, I’ve got Jacob and Carla has Lerato. We head straight into the mountains.

I gotta admit, winning feels good, I just hope this is enough of a setback and that we can keep chipping away at them.