Uno and Fog: Test Subjects

We take the elevator down, my skill set doesn’t make it very hard to bypass the security pad once you realize that at the end of the day its just specific electrical impulses that the machine is looking for before sending a signal unlocking everything.

The elevator opens up on the second to lowest floor, the lowest level having the powerplant, where the map indicated their were holding cells were located.  The fact that it is cells, plural, makes me uneasy.  The entry area is a security check point.  Before the doors even open, I put the two guards to sleep.

I felt the presence of guards on each level, as well as lines heading out to separate building, which I assume is a monitoring station close by.  Its a lot easier to get guards to seal off a building, if they’re not sealing their own doom.  Loyalty and duty only go so far.

I could fuzz out the security cameras but that’s a lot more noticeable than two men heading down to the lower levels without setting off alarms and apparently entering the proper pass code.

I was hoping that inattention late at night, and not setting off alarms would work in our favor.  Other people’s incompetence is often the handmaiden to lady luck.  I kept an eye of the currents set to seal off each level, blow the elevator shaft and flood each floor with sea water which left me with very divided attention.

It isn’t lost on me that many of the components in the security system are made by Norte Corporation.  Practicing bypassing security makes one very familiar with the different systems people use, in addition to the fact that I had practice the most on the systems most available to me, which obviously come from the company my father runs and I work for.

It didn’t mean that Norte Corp was directly involved in this set up, but it was definitely something I was going to look into.

The Fog quickly propped up the two guards to make them look like they were still attending to the posts properly and then looked over at me, “you o.k.?”

“Just a lot to keep track of,” I wave my hand to encompass the entire complex, “they have the elevator rigged, and each level is set to be flooded with sea water in an emergency.”  Being completely immersed in water and drowning might not be the top of my nightmares but it was up there.

“Makes sense.”

“Glad you approve.”  Off the security point was a storage area to one side, a locked medication area on the other and directly in front a set of sealed door that opened like an airlock.”

“Can you get the doors?”

The first door opens and we step inside, once its shut I close the circuit on the other one opening it and we step through.

There’s what looks like a surgical center to the immediate left, and a locked door to the right and then cells.

Occupied cells as it turns out.

Men and women, old and young.  Each cell was set up differently.  Some were bathed in colored lights, some were lined with materials I didn’t recognize.  Each of the occupants had scars at the sides of their heads and on their foreheads.  Most were asleep, lying on the floor of their rooms, some wandered back and forth, some stared blankly at us through the windows.

Their eyes empty.

All of them wore something akin to a straight jacket, although the material was different on some.

“Are those what I think they are?”

“Yes.” The Fog says tersely and I feel queasy.  Someone didn’t want their subjects capable of getting ideas of escape or fighting back which explained the relatively low level of security.

We get to the end of the hall and the final door.  Inside I see someone, it has to be the woman, strapped to a table, there are tubes and wires attached all over her body.  Fluids entering her and fluids being drained and collected from her, she doesn’t move.  There are monitors along the wall.

“What do we do now?”  I whisper, even though there really is no reason to.

“We end this.”