Present day...

Fred led them across the strange office room and out the other white door. They found themselves in another white hallway. More brown doors were set into the walls.

They walked through another office room. Another hallway. Then another office. There didn’t appear to be any one else around. In one final hallway, he stopped next to what appeared to be just a blank portion of wall. He looked around as if to check no one was watching and put his hand on it. After a moment the wall disappeared into thin air. This time they found themselves staring into a grey hall, fully metal. Fred started walking along it. His footsteps echoed loudly. Once more they followed him. At the end of this hallway a set of electronic doors barred their way. Behind them, the wall had reappeared, blocking them from the view of anyone who might happen to pass along the hallway.

Cat turned so her voice would reach the group and not Fred. “You know, if it weren’t for all the obvious white doors I’d think they were deliberately trying to make it hard to find the way in.”

“Security through obscurity is not security.” Indi remarked.

“What?” Cat asked.

Indi shook her head. “Programmer’s saying.”

“Seems like a bit of a fire risk.” Falco remarked. He couldn’t help himself from glancing at Amanda.

Amanda pretended not to notice.

Fred put his hand in a hole next to the door. He winced as a machine pricked his palm and took a small sample of blood. Moments later the doors slid open. They walked out onto what appeared to be a large underground balcony of sorts, a balcony which curved around to both the left and the right. On the other side of the railing lay a deep hole. They stepped forward and stared into the dark abyss. The hole was quite possibly one hundred meters wide. As for its depth, who knew? The bottom was not visible.

“It’s a Splice?” Wolf asked.

Fred seemed surprised that he knew what it was. “Indeed. Its unique properties are useful for conducting certain scientific experiments but mind you this information does not leave this facility.”

“Illegal experiments?” Cat asked.

Fred gave her a warning look. “The nature of the experiments is privileged information. It is outside what you need to know.”

‘Of course it is,’ Cat thought, her internal sarcasm meter turned up to eleven.

Fred led them along the edge of the Splice Hole and through a door which led to another hall. This one was shorter than the previous ones and with four brown doors, two on either side of the hall. A fleet of stairs lay at the end of the hall. To the right of the stairs was an elevator.

“I would thank you very much not to go wandering around, and to stay on this floor unless escorted,” Fred told them. He pointed to the brown doors. “These are your rooms. Your bags should be along shortly.” He turned to leave. “Oh and don’t worry about the rats. There are a couple of them around here.” He spoke over his shoulder. “We’ve tried putting down traps but the buggers are experts at avoiding them.”

Kass glanced around nervously.

“What if it’s an emergency?” Cat asked.

He sighed and turned back to face them. “In the event of an emergency, personal will find you and escort you to a safe location. Under no circumstances are you to leave this floor unescorted.”

Just then the doors behind him opened and two men dressed all in black entered, carrying 4 duffel bags each.

“Ah, here is your stuff” Fred smiled. “Now unless there are any more questions I will leave you to get comfortable.” He was half-turned toward the door before he had even finished his sentence.

“When’s lunch?” Indi blurted out.

Fred turned back again with a strained smile plastered across his face.

“Also when are we getting briefed?”

“You will be fully briefed at 1900 hours. Dinner will be served at half an hour prior to that. Somebody will come to fetch you then”. He turned to leave again.

“Dinner?” Indi repeated to the others, frowning as she turned her wrist over to check the time. It was just after 1:30pm.

“No lunch,” Amanda observed.

Indi pouted. “Good thing I brought snacks.”

“They don’t seem in too much of a hurry” Amanda commented.

“The whole thing seems weird. Where are all the people?” Cat added.

“At lunch?” Falco suggested.

Indi frowned and put her hands on her hips. “That can’t be right. Amanda, you said food was included.”

Zephyr shrugged. “Maybe they’re just finishing lunch. It is more near the end of lunch time. They might have assumed we ate on the way. And maybe they’re in no rush because it’s an easy job and we really will be done in two days this time.”

Cat snorted. “Sure, because we get called in for easy jobs. When have any of Coal’s jobs run on time when it’s all of us?”

“Are you blaming the rest of us for that?” Falco asked in mock indignation.

“Yes.” Cat replied with a nod and a smug smile. “My jobs always run on time.”

“But your jobs are what? Breaking and entering? Simple theft? Life’s much easier when you’re on the other side of the law.”

“Technically we’re not on the right side of the law here,” Kass corrected. “This sort of stuff really should be going to law enforcement or the army but they don’t want anyone knowing what they do here and so they call us.”

Falco shrugged. “We’re saving lives, not helping them do whatever it is they are doing. It’s different from simple theft.”

This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

Cat snorted. Before she could add anything Zephyr interrupted.

“At least Monday’s a holiday.”

“Not for everyone,” Amanda commented.

Zephyr shrugged. “Who’s looking after your horses?”

“The Kids, Bobby specifically. Gemma would but as you know she’s pregnant and I don’t want her risking the baby. My parents are helping out as well, stopping by occasionally, making sure they don’t burn the house down.”

“Literally” Sirius said softly with the hint of a teasing smile. It earned him a gentle warning glance from Amanda. Their oldest daughter was a Firestarter as well, just not quite as controlled with it as her mother, and pregnancy often made one’s powers a little more unpredictable.

“What about the rest of you?” Zephyr asked looking at Indi, Falco, Kass, and Wolf.

“My parents are looking after Jewel.” Indi replied. “And Jesse,” she added with a glance in Kass’s direction.

“They’re at the ex’s” Wolf said, short and simple. He knew they probably weren’t, but his three high-schoolers were old enough that they tended to stray where they wanted when they wanted. They freely divided their time up between each parent’s house and friend’s places. That and the local area was great for camping, which much of the youth spent doing.

Zephyr nodded.

“Guess we should check out our rooms.” Falco bent down to pick up a couple of duffel bags, one which was his, and two which belonged to Indi.

There was a murmur of agreement, and everyone shifted to picking up their bags.

Sirius and Amanda took one bag and one room.

Zephyr looked at Cat. “You and I?”

Cat replied with a nonchalant look and a flippant “whatever.”

“Looks like you two get to share,” Indi said to Kass and Wolf as she followed Falco into their room.

“Mmm,” Wolf murmured as if he couldn’t really care less either. Kass picked up her bag and handed Wolf his.

Inside Falco and Indi’s room there were two single beds, a double dresser with six drawers and a small mirror placed atop the dresser.

Indi studied the beds. “Let’s push them together.”

Falco gave a nod, dropped the bags he was carrying, and started to push. Indi smiled amused. She hadn’t meant for him to start straight away. She briefly admired the muscular shape of his butt and the size of his strong arms. Then she went over to the drawers to inspect their contents, or lack thereof as it turned out. She turned to the mirror to check herself out briefly, before her gaze found Falco again. He looked up and gave her a mischievous smile.

Next door, Amanda and Sirius had also pushed their beds together. Since Sirius was a Strongarm he could do it with a single push of one hand. Their room was pretty much a reflected version of Indi and Falcos’. Amanda sat cross legged on the bed and shuffled through the bag. Sirius stood next to the bed watching her with a somewhat puzzled look across his face.

“What are you looking for?” he asked.

“Nothing, I’m just checking if…” she trailed off.

“If what?”

“If they searched our bags before they brought them down,” Amanda said.

“Well they searched us didn’t they?”

Amanda triumphantly pulled out a bottle of bubbly. “Yeah, well apparently their search policy doesn’t extend to the bags.” She grinned.

“They were probably just looking for weapons,” Sirius replied. “What did you bring that for?”

“Celebration” Amanda shrugged. She didn’t mention the flask they’d taken off her. Maybe it was just harder for them to check the contents. A bottle of bubbly was after all more likely to actually contain what it said it did.

“What if we fail in our mission?” Sirius teased.

“Well you know what they say about how there are two occasions for drinking Champagne?”

“Doesn’t that bottle say Prosecco?”

Amanda shrugged, “Close enough.”

Sirius gave a chuckle. He paused then frowned.

“What?” Amanda asked.

“Does this place seem quite right to you?”

She shrugged. “They’re a bit strange.”

“Their protocols are inconsistent. Their questions are… they probably already know all that stuff they asked us. And asking about our parents…” Sirius sat on the edge of the bed.

“Checking if we’re who we said we were or against their own research about us? Getting us to talk long enough to do voice recognition? I don’t know,” Amanda shrugged.

“Perhaps.”

Across the hall Cat was lounged on her bed taking, as she put it, a cat nap. Her bag lay, where she had left it discarded on the floor. Beside the dresser, Zephyr was putting some of his things in draws.

“Aren’t you going to unpack?” Zephyr asked her.

“What’s the point? We’re only here for a weekend.” She replied.

“That’s what they said on our last mission too” Zephyr replied “and then we ended up staying for a week. I’m getting comfortable.”

“Makes for a faster escape if we have to leave in a hurry,” Cat added opening one eye to peer at Zephyr.

“Yeah, I guess” Zephyr sighed and chucked his bag in one corner.

“Hey wanna push the beds together?” he said with a wink.

“In your dreams” Cat replied with a smile then closed her eyes again.

Cat had slept with Zephyr on several occasions, all of them at least a few months back. It had been predominately casual, as most of Cat’s relationships tended to be. However, she’d been cooling things with him down. Drag them out too long and people tended to start wanting things. Zephyr was smart enough to understand and wise enough to never ask for more but she also knew he was type of guy who would prefer a relationship. Just knowing that was enough. There was only one lover Cat had kept around long-term and it was precisely because he didn’t want something long-term that she kept returning to him.

A moment later she heard the door open and glanced up to see Zephyr leaving through it. “Where you going?” she asked.

“Exploring” Zephyr shrugged.

“Right” Cat mumbled and closed her eyes again. “Wake me if anybody dies.”

Zephyr stepped out into the hallway and looked up and down. There was nobody around. He wandered towards the elevator and stopped outside its doors. He pressed the button and to his surprise the doors opened. He poked his head inside, curious how many floors there were.

“Hey” said a voice behind him.

Zephyr jumped nearly a foot in the air. “Shit!” he tuned to see Indi standing there a large grin plastered over her face. Her cheeks were flushed, like she’d been for a run, even though Zephyr knew Indi hardly ever ran.

“What are you doing?” she laughed.

“Don’t do that” he replied.

“Do what?” she asked still smiling.

“Sneak up on people like that.”

“I didn’t. You just didn’t notice me because you were too busy doing… what were you doing?” she asked.

“I was just seeing how many floors the elevator went to,” he replied innocently.

“Well did you find out?” Indi asked. Sometimes Zephyr couldn’t tell when Indi was being serious but in this case, by her luck, it was a legitimate question.

“Not exactly…”

“Let me see” Indi stepped into the elevator.

“Huh” she tilted her head slightly to the side “that’s interesting.” On the wall of the elevator were buttons with letters as well as numbers. “Well I guess the best way to find out is to test it. You wanna see where it goes?” she asked excitedly.

Zephyr shook his head and took a step backwards. “Not really.”

“Oh come on,” Indi replied “It’ll be fun. We can try a few and see if we can figure it out. Maybe they’re not floor numbers and it’s a code.”

Zephyr hesitated. “Fred told us to stay on this floor.”

“Fred said “I would thank you very much not to go wandering around, and to stay on this floor unless escorted” Indi replied word for word in what was a rather accurate impression of Fred.

“Exactly” Zephyr said.

“No, weren’t you listening? He said he’d thank us if we did, it’s a preferential term, not an order” Indi replied. “And technically if we go together then we are escorting each other.”

“We don’t know what’s down there.”

“Uh huh and I’m dying to find out. Anyway I’ll just escort myself otherwise.”

‘Poor choice of words’ Zephyr thought then replied “You’re a shield, you’ll probably be fine.” But he was already thinking of what the others would say if he left Indi to wander off alone. She had a habit of finding trouble. Or was it that trouble found her?

“Fine but we stay in the elevator,” Zephyr said, stepping forward. As he did the door to the hall opened. He glanced up. “Quick! Get out! Fred’s back.”

Indi did as she was told. Lucky for them Fred didn’t see them getting out of the elevator.

“Hello” Fred said as he approached them. “I was going to come back later but something has happened that needs your attention.”

As he finished speaking the door on his right opened and Kass walked out.

“Hey, what’s going on?”

“Fred needs us to see something,” Zephyr told her.

“All of us?”

“We were just about to get everybody,” Fred confirmed.

“What do you need us to see?” Kass asked Fred.

“It’s best if we get everyone out here and then I can show you all.”

Kass nodded. Indi was already half way to her and Falco’s room. Zephyr went to wake Cat.

“Somebody die?” Cat asked Zephyr as he stepped back into their room.

“Maybe.”

Cat sat up. She studied his face. “Alright.” She got up and followed him out the door.