A.n. I'm sorry for the late release but we didn't have electricity for the past one and a half days and I used the last of my charge on the ravings of a lunatic, the electricity is back so I'm posting again. Let it never be said that I don't care about my readers, to make up for the missed chapters I have written this extra large chapter. On a brighter note, happy birthday to me! :)
Chapter eighty one
I woke up surrounded by a sea of naked red bodies. I was about to remove myself from the bottom of a mini mountain of succubi that seemed to have formed around me when I remembered that I had nothing to do. Kazimir had hit a dead end in his investigation so I had no idea were to find Fairweather Tech or the Atelli meaning that I have no way of moving forward with my mission, its not like I can drive around the Nevada desert asking directions to secret underground testing facilities. I was just laying there on a banquet table considering my next move when I noticed that I wasn't the only one awake, I turned to find Lilith's eyes gazing at me with interest,"What are you so worried about? If you need help with anything just ask."
I considered the pros and cons of the situation, if I ask her for help she might figure out all three of my identities, I'm pretty sure she already made the connection between me and the lady of mercy but if I do this she'll know that I'm looking for Fairweather and that might be enough information for her to know that I'm also Persephone or as I am more commonly known in the media, Raven.
In the end I guess it was a matter of whether I was willing to take the risk or not and in the end I decided that if the Atelli were putting so much effort into keeping it hidden then it was probably very important to them, making it equally important that I stop them so I decided to take the risk and just ask her if she had any information on Fairweather tech's activities in Vegas,
I was not really expecting much but I was surprised when she got up and dragged me out from under the pile of bodies and led me to a room without so much as an explanation. The room looked like a professional office that was invaded by purple velvet and cushions. She sat me down on a love seat in one corner of the room and went to the large redwood desk. She picked up the phone there and started to dial some numbers, fifteen minutes later she had apparently found something because she called me over with a giant smile on her face.
She handed me the phone and said, "This is Alice, one of the girls I manage. One of her frequent customers is a certain Corporal Damian. I believe you should hear what she has to say."
For the next twenty minutes I listened to Alice regale me with her activities with the corporal , she seemed to take great joy in giving me all the sordid and unnecessary details of her affairs with the corporal but in the end I got the complete story out of her.
The gist of the story was that the corporal was the aid of a General MacIntyre who was in charge of many facilities around the country including a decommissioned underground nuclear testing facility in the middle of Nevada. The General had the bright idea of making a few million bucks by swindling Uncle Sam and illegally sold said bunker to Fairweather Tech. The sudden wind fall of money didn't only benefit the General but also the Corporal who was only too happy to spend some money on Alice, afterwards he even bragged about how he got the money in an effort to impress her. A few days later both the general and most of his closest aids including the corporal went to Helsinki Finland to finalize the deal after which the corporal stopped visiting Alice. She asked around about him and found that he was back in the Las Vegas Air Force Station but she also heard that the general and his aides were acting a little strange.
That was all I needed to know, if my guess was correct then the General and all his aides were now Atelli and I could probably find the place where the Atelli are holed up in the Las Vegas Air Force Station.
* * *
About three hours later I was driving a car loaned to me by Lilith , an old beat up Toyota Camry, towards the Las Vegas Air Force Station.
Entering the L.V.A.F.S. wasn't going to be a walk in the park, it wasn't just a normal military installation but also a part of Air Defense Command and as if that wasn't enough it was also housed a facility that belonged to the department of energy , formerly the atomic energy commission.
What this means is that the place would be locked up tighter than a drum. As I approached the chain link fence I put on my Raven mask in case there were any cameras in the area and holstered two pistols that Lilith was kind enough to provide. I drove the Camry until it was right next to the fence and left it there after taking out a duffle bag. I walked over to a close by shrub and changed into an air force uniform complete with hat (do I need to say it? Also supplied by Lilith). When I was nice and ready I took out a remote control and pressed a button on it causing all the explosives that the Camry was filled with.The Camry exploded into a giant ball of flames that made a sizeable hole in the fence. Immediately the place was swarming with soldiers and I sort of slipped in using the confusion.
As I was passing one of the female soldiers I picked her pocket for her ID and continued on my way to the building where the office of the general resides. I used my stolen ID on the ID scanner to get inside. Once inside I used the elevator to go to the top floor where the general's office was. There I was stopped by a guard who asked me what my business with the general was, he was just a normal human so I quickly knocked him out without hurting him too much. I peered into the room inside and it was filled with nothing but Atelli, thankfully all of them looked weak and humanoid except for things like sharp teeth and extra appendages.
I took out two silencers from my pocket and put them on my pistols. I walked into the room and quickly shot each Atelli in the head before they even had the chance to react. I walked to the only other door in the room while reloading my guns in the process. I opened the door and there was the general in all his glory, the Atelli transformation had turned him into a giant slug that was eerily similar to Jabba the hutt from star wars. I ended his miserable existence with a bullet to his brain.
I approached his computer and tried to open it but it asked me for a password. I then used my most diabolical hacking method on it, I closed my eyes and typed random letters. Since what I was typing was completely random it was now subject to my probability manipulation powers and voila , the computer was opened. I inserted a special flash given to me by Kazimir which quickly downloaded all the information in the computer to a secure server where I can access it again at a later time.
I locked the doors as I exited the generals office, then calmly walked out of the base with my hat still angled low so that my face wasn't visible. A few meters up the road Delilah was waiting for me leaning on a beautiful poison green Dodge Viper.
When I was close enough she threw me the keys and got into the passenger side.
It was time to see what this baby can do.
* * *
Kazimir sifted through all the data in the general's computer and came up with not only the location for the secret underground testing facility but also the schematics for it.
I drove to the location of the facility in a van carrying as many large caliber guns and heavy weaponry as Lilith could get me, which turned out to be a lot. Gun laws in America were very lax and so getting military grade equipment on the black market was surprisingly easy if you knew the right people and Lilith knew the right people.
I parked near the hidden entrance of the facility and got out of the van. I walked to the back ,opened the back doors , and started to go through all the guns to choose which one I was going to use today. I was inspecting a modified M16 with a grenade launcher when I felt a sting on my arm and smacked whatever insect had stung me. I looked down at my arm and I saw the crushed remains of a hornet.
What was the hell was a hornet doing in the middle of the desert?
My suspicions were raised further when another insect bit me , this time a spider, then another insect stung me, then another... I was constantly healing myself from the stings while I turned my soul sight on and just as I suspected the insects weren't natural, they were more like body parts of a larger organism, an Atelli who was nothing but a large swarm of insects.
I picked up one of the weapons from the van that would be perfect for this job. I put the gas tanks on my back like a school bag and pointed the nozzle of the flame thrower towards the main body of the Atelli. While the flames were spraying out I empowered them with my energy turning them into silver blue plumes that were beautiful just as they were deadly.
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Most of the insects were incinerated in the blue silver blaze but the Atelli wasn't dead yet. He concentrated all of his soul into one small silver ant that the heat was having little effect on and tried to escape. I picked up a pistol and shot the ant before it could scamper away. I then shredded the escaping Atelli's soul marking the death of this particular Atelli but now the other Atelli knew that I was coming.
And just like I suspected a group of Atelli came rushing out of a door hidden beneath a formation of rocks. I dropped the now empty flame thrower and picked up the M16 I was eyeing earlier. A shot from the grenade launcher took care of one that looked like a vortex of cotton candy, if cotton candy was filled with razor blades and another one that looked like a giant snake. Before I could do anymore an Atelli that looked like a giant mutant armadillo rolled into a ball, his weird armor started to rotate at a high rate of speed , spraying sand backwards and accelerating him rapidly in my direction. I was just able to get out of his way but he hit the van overturning it.
I finally took out my fans and not only hardened them but empowered them with my energy making them glow blue silver. I ducked again from the giant ball of death that was coming towards me and lunged towards an Atelli that had floating pieces of metal around it. I deflected a jagged piece that was floating towards me and used my other fan to cut through to the center were a small ball of metal resided. When I cut that small ball all the other pieces fell from the air and the Atelli perished .
As the self propelling ball made another run at me I rolled to its right and cut a small piece of its armor so that it was jagged and sharp. The Atelli,unaware of what I had done continued to spin causing the jagged piece to shred him into pieces before he could stop. What remained of the spinning monstrosity landed among a group of Atelli in a violent jumble of dismembered limbs and splattering fluids.
What was left of the Atelli was disorganized and demoralized, I gradually mowed them down until they were all dead. After i finished off the last one, decapitating something that looked like a teddy bear slinging barbed wire, I walked over to the hidden entrance and made my way down the hole. As i made my way down the ladder into the darkness below i couldn't help but think about one of my favorite books as a child, Alice in wonderland.
I couldn't help but wonder where this rabbit hole would lead me, I doubt it would be anything as fun as a rabbit in a top hat.
* * *
At first the difference between the bright sunshine outside and the pitch darkness in the hole was quite jarring but as my eyes gradually adjusted I was eventually able to make out some light coming from the bottom of the ladder.
When I got to the bottom I could see that the light was coming from a line of florescent tubes that was lighting a circular tunnel that branched off a few meters ahead of me. The underground facility was actually a rather complex network of tunnels that was almost like a maze. It could have taken me a while to navigate the complex which was nicknamed 'the ant farm' but I had the schematics and I had a feeling that whatever I wanted was at the very heart of the facility, where the main control center of the entire facility was located.
I made my way through the facility, alert for ambushes or traps but there was nothing. The only things moving in the concrete tunnels other than me were the video cameras that wirred as they rotated to follow my every move, I was being watched and even though I was wearing my mask and my identity was hidden it still made me feel very unsettled.
Finally I made it to the control center without any resistance which only raised my suspicions even higher. When I found that the thick metal door wasn't even locked I nearly just turned around and walked away but a voice coming from inside stopped me,
"Ms Persephone it is very rude to break into other people's property not to mention murder their employees. If you really wanted to see what was inside this facility so badly all you had to do was ask, I would have been happy to give you the grand tour."
I knew that smug annoying slimy voice, I have only heard it twice before but it wasn't the kind of thing that you would forget.
"You don't have to linger at the door way Ms Persephone, there are no traps deadly or otherwise in this room, scout's honor. Or are you just shy, I mean you couldn't be shy could you? The way you managed to ruin my plans and do it so publicly, no one so shy could get so much publicity."
I knew that faux polite tone with an undercurrent of violence bubbling underneath. I knew Tue voice of my number one target. I burst into the room fans drawn and glowing brightly and came face to face with Marcus Fairweather. He stretched his thin lips into that smug smile of his and said,
"You look disappointed, you didn't honestly think that I was really there did you?"
The face that I was looking at wasn't a physical face but one on a screen. He continued to speak,
"Now that you have arrived we can start, I have something very special lined up for today and I couldn't think of a better person I would have liked to share this moment with than you. It is fate that you decided to attack this facility on this day at this time so that we can share this moment . I would like to direct your attention to the screen to my right where a countdown timer should appear shortly."
A five minute countdown appeared and started to countdown on one of the many screens that covered the wall in front of me,"So that is your plot, some sort of self destruct mechanism?"
"Unfortunately that facility didn't come with a self destruct mechanism plus if I wanted to do that I would have closed the door behind you. No this countdown is for something much more special, a completely unique event if you will. I would like to direct your attention to the screen on my left."
An image of a couple of people in lab coats working on computers in a large room appeared, I was starting to get a bad feeling about this, "What is this supposed to be?"
His smug grin grew even bigger, it grew so big that it threatened to bisect his face ,"This is the European Organization for Nuclear Research an organization better known as CERN . As you probably know we were commissioned to make something for them, what you probably didn't know is that it was a piece for the CERN super collider. You see tearing a whole into another world is a laborious and energy consuming process. If I tried to do it myself it might take me years, even decades but thanks to the CERN super collider I won't have to. All the experiments they have been performing have been wearing at the very fabric of the universe and in exactly one minute and fifteen seconds they will rip a hole into it with absolutely no help from me but thanks to the little piece that we installed into the collider we can make sure that the hole that is created is to my world."
"Wait a minute, are you telling me that you are going to use the CERN super collider to open a doorway to your world?"
"Exactly Ms Persephone. And when this doorway is created countless shining ones will come to this world and transform every creature on this wretched planet. You are now thirty seconds from the destruction of humanity."
As the timer continued to count down I looked at Marcus and said, "Hmmmmmm, the large hadron super collider , such a large and complex machine. In fact I believe it is the largest and most complex testing facility ever built. So many bits and pieces, so many things that could go wrong."
For the first time Marcus's smirk slipped a little, "What are you babbling about, we have had our best people working on this. They have done the math and the chances of anything going wrong is below point zero zero one percent."
As his grin started to falter mine started to grow, "But there is a chance that something could go wrong."
He was starting to look a little worried, "But the chances that something would go wrong are so miniscule that it is practically impossible."
The timer entered the last ten seconds of the countdown , and I spoke as it counted down to zero.
"Let (10) me (9) tell (8) you (7) a (6) secret. (5) Nothing (4) is (3) impossible."
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