Chapter sixty-seven
Infiltration
LHC-8. Chemin des Prés Jins, France.
Jim Stuart tried to appear calm, but being on that operation made him a little nervous.
He was just a simple leader, like hundreds of others, of a First Response Team. It was true that his position had responsibilities and, just a few days before, he had been involved with the main branch of the SID in the Sil Moore case.
That events had transpired in order for him to be a member of the team that would enter the facility seemed almost fanciful to him. He had only gone there because he had called Oxy. An excuse to talk to her, following the advice Thor had given him.
Was it as Thor had said and did he really have feelings that were more than respect and admiration for his former college professor?
Given his job, he had never been too serious about finding a partner, or even making future plans. He was a chaos-child. His mother was a fey and his father was human.
His aging had stopped just shy of twenty-one, the same biological age as his mother. He certainly didn't look bad and was financially well off, but he had never given much thought to finding someone to share his life with. In addition to his biological family, he had a small family in the form of his colleagues and friends from the FRT. Nights of fun, pizzas and a few drinks after work, repeat.
He had become a man of routine, but he certainly didn't hate it. Who knew, since he would be long-lived, maybe he would change his mind in a few decades and decide to do something different with his life if he wanted to retire.
On the other hand, he had to balance the danger of his job. Was it really good to look for a partner knowing what he was doing?
What he felt for Oxy he had always thought was admiration. But was it simply admiration? Why had he been glad to hear her voice when Oxy had been called to help with the Sil Moore case? Why had he been so glad when she had asked for his help, even though it was such a grisly case that had taken the lives of so many people?
Even at that moment, as he watched the backs of the others walking toward the entrance of LHC-8, he couldn't help but want to see her again and make sure Oxy was all right. That could be a disaster but what he was worried about was seeing her again. Was he crazy?
A rustling sound behind him made him turn around and he saw that the droids behind him had also turned around.
"What's wrong?" Natsuki asked.
Jim looked at her, with the special vision built into his synthetic body and shook his head. "Nothing. Someone stepped on a branch."
"Come on, don't stop," Thomas Granger urged.
They had reached the entrance to the old research center, which was in ruins. Time, nature, and graffiti artists had used the cracked and peeling walls of that facility as a multicolored canvas to depict ideas, music, and sculptures with 3-D paint. Although, judging by the state of the place, only nature had been the artist that had been most prevalent on the site in recent times.
And, as the drones had transmitted to the command center, there were no guards in that area. It was a point between Geneva and Ferney-Voltaire, right on the border of the two countries and on the other hand it was only one and a half kilometers from the renovated Geneva airport, which meant too many eyes.
So far everything had gone as planned. The Odin squadron had separated from the Munin section in the old botanical park and had gone their separate ways. Once the squadron reached the foot of the emergency stairs, in the subway part leading to the super accelerator, the battle on the surface would begin.
The three GSN team members, one mecha and the droids would stand guard outside the LHC-8, while Jest established a secure line of communication with the command center. Jade, on the subterranean infiltration team, would send data to Jest on what was happening below and at the same time receive communications on how the situation was developing on the surface. A hummingbird drone would remain on the surface to monitor the perimeter.
The infiltration team entered the facility and following the maps on their Neurowires reached the mouth of the old elevator in just a few seconds. Someone had torn down the security barriers that once prevented entry without a retinal scan, fingerprint or security card.
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The second hummingbird drone went down the hole and sent a scan of the place to make sure they would not find any problems. They were receiving the images from the drone, when it suddenly destabilized and hit a wall, but was not damaged and bounced between the walls as it floated. Almost the next second they heard a thump on the floor part of the hole followed by a howl and then a short growl and at the next moment they heard some dry sounds moving away. Meanwhile the drone stabilized and continued to descend.
"What was that?" Stuart asked.
"A rat?" Natsuki ventured.
"If that was a rat it weighed at least three kilos or more," Shin guessed.
"Let's be careful. Who knows what's been breeding down there for so many years."
"Yeah, the only thing we would need is to meet some monster," sighed Lizbeth in a dry tone, tilting her head.
At the sound of monster both Ryuuji and Natsuki looked at each other. They had enough of monsters like the one they had encountered at that station just a few days ago.
The team only activated the levitation of their boots to descend that 175 meter downward trajectory. As the information from the urban scouts had revealed, that part was unobstructed. The elevator had fallen to the ground at some point and the wreckage rested at the base. As he descended, Jim Stuart watched the zippers of the elevator shaft. The play of light and shadows made him long for that claustrophobic space as if it were the mouth of some creature ready to swallow them.
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The team finally arrived at the base and, running in the gloom between the labyrinthine corridors and rooms, finally penetrated to the ring of the old hadron collider. They found no monsters, but there were indeed some recent footprints of a small animal left on the damp ground with dirt and dust. The air was strange, as expected, and the clear humidity could be felt seeping in. On more than one occasion someone almost slipped between the small puddles and streams that ran through the fractured concrete, which had become covered with moss over the years. More than an accelerator, it was already a subterranean ecosystem. More like a cave gallery than anything else.
Shin, behind Lizbeth, occasionally tried to look at his lover's hands. Maybe it had seemed to him but, since they had gone down, it had seemed to him that she was a little tense. What had happened to her underground? He wondered, though he could not ask.
On the other hand, he was struck by the place. The CEEN site had already been under construction in the sixties of the twentieth century. Even the hadron accelerator was already under construction when he had disappeared in 1999. However, the state of decay of the site reminded him of when, on more than one occasion, he had infiltrated an abandoned cave or temple for research.
It gave him a strange sensation, but one that he had already encountered. Two centuries and twenty-four years of his disappearance had not passed in vain for the Earth. And with what had just happened it filled him with terror to think what would have happened if instead of arriving at the 110 he had arrived at another time, past or future, where there were none of those he loved or knew.
It was better not to think about it in that place.
The three hundred meters they traveled turned into a few more meters. Due to earth movements that part did not seem to fit with the old maps and there was no data about it in the recent information or that of the explorers. However, this did not present a problem in finding the next section.
They entered through several corridors to what had been the linear accelerator. The accelerator itself was separate from the part they were walking through, it was behind another concrete wall. The moss, on the other hand, had disappeared in that part and the walls looked less deteriorated.
As they ran Natsuki looked at her companion with a nervous smile. "With this place we completed our quota of going subway for the month, right?"
"Don't remind me of that now. The smell comes to mind and makes me want to puke," Ryuuji said, grimacing.
"Come on, let's go," Granger urged. "Any news from the CC?"
"No, sir!" Jade reported.
The team powered up the parts of the clothing armor that acted as an exoskeleton and set off on a running journey to the next destination. Halfway there they had to slow down. They had been surprised to find some rusty bicycles along the way and almost crashed into them. It seemed that during the time the site had been in operation it was normal for some people to travel on bicycles for the long distances underground. Still, who would leave that on the road?
As they ran, the SID members noticed Jade's speed. She, like Shin, was not using the enhancements. Both were incredibly fast. In Shin's case it could be that the particles inside his body gave him some sort of special muscular endurance. On the other hand Jade could be due to her fey genetics and that she was crossed with a rabbit or hare.
The final part of the journey had become a bit more complicated, due to debris on the road and once they slowed down a bit. But they had reached the fork of the section.
That part had the rooms, some of them hundreds of meters long, which had contained areas of other experiments carried out underground.
They passed through a couple of them on their way and then reached the corridor that connected to another control laboratory and another corridor with several stairs and metal walkways. Finally they had arrived at the point they had hoped for.
The explorers had gotten as far as that point, but no further. They were the emergency stairs that connected to the super accelerator. There were two other such stairs, but they were walled off according to the maps of the old era and were otherwise inside the south and west area, under the main research facility on the surface. It was such a tiring descent and ascent that apparently it had never been used when that place had been in operation. An extra safety measure that had never been used.
If the current occupants had unloaded heavy machinery, to get the facility up and running, they would have used the other heavy equipment entrances, but those parts were guarded, and they had taken a long route that they hoped no one would suspect they would use because of the long haul.
They opened the door, which was missing a piece at the bottom, and the drone entered first, scanning the structure.
The stairs were concrete and, except for the rarefied air and some dust, were in perfect condition. But it was quite overwhelming to look down into that space of brutalist architecture. They had to go just under 1300 meters in descent.
The drone scanned the way down and everything was in order. They could use the controlled levitation systems to descend faster once again.
Lizbeth swallowed hard before jumping into the void, but she wasn't the only one. It was one thing to do it in open space, but they were already descending further and further into that place.
It was the point of no return for the operation.
From there, the only thing left to do was to send the message that they had reached the final connection to enter and start the attack on the surface. They would have to take control of the elevator, to allow the entry of the forces from above once the combat was over or, if not, to prevent more enemy forces from descending towards it. At the same time another team would have to take care of the power source that was using that place. Then look for Oxy and Lee Reubens.
As they went down Granger passed the final check. "Jade and I will take care of finding the elevator. Agent Londonderry, Katsuragi, Kayabuki, take control of the power plant." Then he looked at Shin and Stuart. "Go with them too, in case you find out where the two professors are you two have permission to search for them and guard them until we take control."
"Are you sure you two will be enough? We don't know what's there yet," Lizbeth asked.
Granger and Jade smiled. "We've been in worse rodeos than this one."
We don't even know what kind of rodeo this one will be, Lizbeth thought.
It was common that Granger had passed the lead on to her, since she was the most senior in the SID although Lizbeth felt a little strange about it. Natsuki and Ryuuji were good agents, but had only recently joined the SID. Stuart had a good resume, but he had never been on a Mesnie operation and Shin... well, despite being the oldest on the team, he was the rookie in the SID.
He hadn't even taken the final oath to become an agent. That would have happened on Wednesday if the plane crash hadn't happened.
Lizbeth finally nodded.
The team landed kicking up some dust on the ground and looked at the entrance.
"Feel that?" asked Lizbeth.
They all nodded. There was something electric in the air and they felt it in their bodies. On the other hand there was a distant noise from behind that door.
They made sure there were no devices in that doorway and got ready.
Granger looked at everyone and took the doorknob and they entered the new supercollider structure. A dark corridor awaited them and behind that the final door.
At that moment they heard a noise of small and fast paws, hundreds of meters above, but the team had already entered the new place and did not hear it. They had even passed by that dark crystalline fur dog, but no one detected it because it was walking on the side of the stairs that hid it better.
The little pug had gotten out of the vehicle with them on the surface and no one had detected him. Only Jim Stuart had almost detected him, when he had heard a rustling sound from behind him, but he had gone unnoticed anyway.
The dog had been behind them the whole time, until he had reached the elevator shaft where, by curiously sniffing the drone coming down, he had fallen the 175 meters to the base.
That blow had done nothing to him. His new physiognomy had saved him. Only his crystal skin had vibrated and reverberated as he emitted an angry growl.
He had followed the red-haired man at first. But after entering that place he had been struck by a kind of sensation coming from beneath the floor.
It was both familiar and unfamiliar.
He started a race in the dark ahead of the team and that's why they had not detected him.
He had passed corridors, stairs, puddles and mud, jumped over abandoned bicycles to finally reach some endless stairs. He had gone down them, when he had detected that feeling getting stronger.
Granger's team finally overtook and passed him, leaving him behind.
He had several hundred meters to go.
Whatever it was, there was something calling him down there.