After they left the gun lab with the doctor hefting the beam cannon along, they found a room labeled as a control room. Entering it, they found several bodies had been gathered in the middle of the room. They looked as though they had been crushed together with a sickening force.

Black goo dripped from the walls, and a metallic smell filled the air. Going to one of the computers, she managed to boot it up, but found it was locked up. Jessica waved Daisy over and said "There is a security lock on this computer, can you please take a look and see if you can bypass it?"

The yellow blob removed a panel in front of the desk and accessed the interior of the computer. Several seconds went by and then the logo of Vadetech appeared on the screen. Deciding against sitting in the goo covered chair, Jessica leaned over and began to go through the menu of the computer.

Under one of the options she found a partial map of the facility labeled upper floors. Opening it, Jessica found the facility had over twenty floors, and there apparently were more further down. She briefly wondered just how deep this place went. Going over the map, she found most of the exits looked as if they were blocked off by the computer system.

Trying to unlock them from here resulted in the computer notifying her several breaches of projects were ongoing and could not comply. Looking around, she found another exit they could get to. It was marked as a hanger bay that was connected to the facility with a long tunnel that was at least four miles long.

To get to the tunnel however, they had to cross through a large room that was unlabeled. All the other routes were blocked off. To get to that large room, they would have to backtrack and head through the cafeteria. “Looks like we can get out through this hangar bay.” Jessica said to Melissa.

"Good, Is there anything else on that computer?"

Jessica went through the menu a second time and shook her head. "No it appears this is not the primary control room. It has limited access to data and controls. According to this the main control room for the upper floors is on the tenth floor."

"I am not interested in going deeper into this place. Let's get going to that exit."

Backtracking quickly, they began to hear those knocking sounds in the vents again. The blobs were on guard keeping an eye above them. Before long they reached the cafeteria and pushed their way inside. Jessica frowned as she saw the pile of skeletons was now missing.

Where they had been was a trail of black goo. It went out the door where they needed to exit. Following the trail outside, they approached the large room doors. They had been ripped aside, and a sparking noise could be heard coming from within.

When they got to the door, they found there was a set of stairs down into the room. The floor was completely covered in the black goo. They would have to wade through it to get to the other side. Looking around, Jessica did not see any of those freaky black skeletons.

Directly in the center of the room, was a series of metallic pillars. One of them was shattered and letting out sparks. Above them was a broken glass cylinder where several tubes were attached. Melissa spoke up and said "I guess that's where that black cube had been sealed. Wonder if it broke free during the war or before it.”

"Probably during if I had to guess, based on the size of this place, no way they would have not attempted to take back this place if they were not already hard-pressed. Though given the abilities of that cube, I wonder why it stayed inside this place all this time?"

"It is possible that it was not really awake. It is possible it was just acting out on instinct, maybe it was seeking a suitable host like your sister, but none of these people here qualified."

“If that's the case, I wonder what made my sister qualified.”

With a sense of disgust, they stepped down into the goo. Jessica found the depth of the black goo went up to her knees. Every step felt like she had to fight through the goo. The blobs crawled up and across the ceiling so as not to have to deal with the goo.

Slowly making their way across the black goo, Jessica noticed the black goo began to move. At that point a wave of goo nearly knocked her off her feet as a giant creature rose from beneath the goo. Hundreds of skeletons had been mashed together to produce this monstrosity.

From this thing came a sense of intense hunger and it reached out towards them. Jessica raised her rifle at the beast, but Melissa was a step ahead. A loud hum and electric arcs travelled through the giant gun activated and intensely white beam surged out and cut through the giant creature.

With a roar of apparent pain, the creature fell into the goo sending a giant wave of the black goo over them. Losing her balance, Melissa lost her grip of the gun and it went tumbling into the black goo. Wiping her eyes to clear them from the black goo, Jessica saw Melissa struggling and helped her stand out of the goo.

Pulling the doctor along, Jessica headed straight for the door, when the creature once again began to crawl towards them. Jessica flipped the power level of her rifle to level two and aimed and fired at the thing. A loud pulse from the gun came, and Jessica found herself flung backwards from the force of the gun, making her drop it somewhere within the black goop.

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Skye dropped from the ceiling and caught a hold of Jessica. They splashed down into the black goo. Getting up, Jessica found that the creature had stopped but now several of the skeletons were now crawling out of its body. Not wanting to overlook them, Jessica began to trudge towards the door.

Reaching the door first Melissa opened it and then grabbed Jessica's arms. The blobs exited the room shortly after and closed the door behind them. They heard several loud thumps as the skeletons began to slam against the door. They began running down the hallway towards the tunnel to the hanger.

While they ran, they had a hard time keeping up right, the black goo that covered them was incredibly slippery. Several times, Jessica simply slipped but was caught by one of the blobs before landing head first. Before long they reached the exit as they heard a deafening boom come from behind them as the skeletons broke through the door.

The door that led into the tunnel was thick nearly ten inches of pure metal. Going through they closed the door behind them. With Daisy's help they managed to lock the door. Soon after they heard some pounding on the door, that gave up after a few minutes.

Recovering their breaths, Jessica asked "Hey can you guy's help get this crud off us?"

The blobs nodded, and they ran their tendrils over the pair of women slowly removing the black goop. Jessica felt them reach under her clothes and get the regions where the black goo and settled inside. It felt like a warm shower to her, and when it was done, Jessica found that she was cleaner then she had ever been.

Melissa said "Wow that was quite the experience."

"Yeah."

The tunnel ahead looked like it had been carved straight out of rock. They began walking down the tunnel, as they walked Jessica felt herself start to feel exhausted from the overly intense day she had. After a while of walking, they came to a large door.

Seeing a panel in the wall, Jessica went over to it and waved the key card she got from the security guard in front of it. A green light appeared, and the door began to rise revealing the hanger bay. Several vehicles were placed within, and a few flying craft were stationed inside as well.

“Looks like we got the first pick of the lot.” Melissa said.

Taking a look over the vehicles, Jessica pointed at a large vehicle in the middle. It looked to be well armored and had big rugged looking tires that would do well in the wasteland. “Let's take that vehicle. Guys can you make sure it’s operational and ready to use?"

The blobs saluted Jessica and rolled in the direction of the car. They popped up it's hood and began to examine the interior of it. Looking at Melissa, Jessica said “We need to find a way to get that car out of here.”

Melissa nodded and set off to examine the far side of the Hanger. Jessica began examining the walls and did not see another door to leave through. A little confused on how they were supposed to get the vehicles in and out of the hanger, Jessica noticed that the floor in the middle of the hangar looked odd.

Going to it, she realized that it was a platform that could move. Looking up, she found there was a shutter on the roof that probably opened up. A nearby control panel looked like it could operate it automatically.

Melisa walked over and said “Did you find anything?”

“Yes, I think this is the way out.”

“That’s good. Come take a look at what I found.”

Jessica walked over and found Melissa digging through some crates that were lined up against the wall. Taking a peek inside, she saw several containers of weapons. “What is this?”

“These look like first-generation laser rifles. Pretty crap at the time, but we could sell them for parts.”

“You are looking for things to sell?”

“I don’t think I will be able to stick around this area, which means we need some stuff to trade. I might be able to make some quick cash with my medical skills, but it sure as hell will be a lot easier if we had some capital in the first place.”

“It sounds like your planning on coming along with me. You do know I’m going to be looking for a way to help free my sister?”

Melissa laughed and said “Yeah, I am planning on coming with you. I’m interested in your pals over there. Don’t worry, I’m not planning on stealing them, what I want is to create a similar suit you were wearing.”

“Why do you want that?” Jessica asked.

“I want revenge. You can help me with that. I can aid you to help save your sister. Do we have a deal?”

“I can help you, just make sure you tell the blobs what you want. It’s up to them if they decide to help you or not.”

Melissa nodded, and Jessica helped to load the vehicle they were taking with several of the boxes. The car roared to life, and Jessica looked in to see Glass working the pedals while Skye was sitting behind the wheel.

She guided them to the middle of the raising platform, and Melissa climbed into the back with Daisy and Blaze. Jessica hit a button, and the roof began retracting showing a dawn light start to settle over the sky.

Hitting another button, the platform started to rise with a loud mechanical sound. Leaping on board, she got into the passenger seat of the vehicle and looked at Melissa, “We need to get to the Sky City that Papa Bright was dealing with.”

“Then we need to be going to the south.”

“Why south?”

“Theranas has an outpost down there. Before we go there, however, we should hit the southern city of Burnt Sage so we can sell our gear. It’s going to be expensive to buy a ticket to go up to the sky city.

“Maybe we should have taken one of these flying craft up there.”

“Not if you want to be shot down. The Sky City’s only let approved aircraft enter their space. Cross into it without authorization they will shoot you down.”

When the platform reached the top, Jessica said "I hope I never have to go down there again. Now which direction is south?" Melissa reached into her pockets and pulled out a compass. “Where did you keep that? I thought the slavers took everything from you?”

“When they found out that I was a doctor, they pretty much left me alone. Especially after Papa Bright identified who I was.”

Directing them south with the compass, they began to drive south. Periodically they would pass an odd looking mutated creature. Jessica looked over to the driving blue blob. Skye looked like it was really concentrating on driving. Feeling the warm sun on her skin, Jessica found herself dozing off.

Jack sat down and laid, waiting for Megan to come, so he could talk to her about the plans for tomorrow.