Vernicia, Rurin and Angelina sneak along the path to the Qinn facility in the forest. So far no one has approached from either way, which only makes them more wary.
"All right, we clear on the plan?" Vernicia whispers as the end of the path comes into view.
"We've only gone over it, like, eight times," Rurin replies.
"Look, we can't take any chances. You were nearly dead a few days ago! Is your energy pike charged?"
"You're not my mom."
"I'm your protective big sister."
"Oh, good one. Yeah, it's charged."
"How about you, Angie?"
Angelina nods. "No one is coming, you're sure?"
"Well, the sensors are easy, but there are also the autoguards to consider," Verni mutters. "Maybe from above? The airpad's empty."
The moment she finishes that sentence, a droning sound quickly approaches. Then an aircraft descends through the canopy, landing on the airpad on the facility's roof.
Verni and Angie look at the aircraft, then each other. "Jinx."
The three of them quickly fly up to level with the roof, keeping to the trees. The aircraft opens its side doors, releasing a few armed guards and a woman wearing a grey skysuit. Two of her wings flare back from her forearms instead of her back, and her face…
"What the… what's Selphia doing here?" Vernicia sounds perturbed. "Kit's gonna come up empty at the inn!"
"Are those really her wings on her arms?" Rurin squints. "Should we get closer?"
"More like a normal bird's, maybe they work that way," Angelina speculates.
Soon Selphia and the guards disappear into the facility. The last guard pulls the door behind him, but it doesn't close all the way.
"Well, how about that," Vernicia mutters. "Come on, guys."
They quickly alight on the roof and sneak into the facility from above, slinking through the scaffolding and pipes above the lights. Unlike the first floor, this facility's second floor has far more people moving through – guards, researchers, the occasional earthmover. Selphia is nowhere in sight.
As another squad passes under them, they make it to the center of the building.
Then Vernicia suddenly stops, looking at her hand.
"What's up?" Rurin whispers.
Verni starts moving her hand around. "Is this stuff… magnetic?"
"Hum? Is it?"
After moving her hand some more, it ends up pointing downwards. "The lower floor, maybe? It's definitely being drawn to something," Verni concludes.
"Worth investigating?" Angelina surveys the people passing below.
"Yeah. Let's take a look."
Getting down to the first floor is a simple matter of waiting for the right moment – no guards, no researchers, no earthmovers, no Deltas… now!
The first floor's roof has even more pipes and scaffolding to slink through. A veritable playground for the likes of the aeronauts.
"There," Angelina whispers. Selphia is standing in the hall, almost like she's waiting for someone. When she notices the trio in the scaffolding, her expression shifts to one of alarm, then back to calm. Then she silently begins walking down the hall.
Taking the cue, they follow along the ceiling, bypassing a bigger-than-average group of researchers.
She stops in front of a high-security door and touches something on its interface. Then, clunk – a heavy lock inside of it comes undone.
The three aeronauts share a quizzical look as Selphia continues down the hall. Then Verni raises her metal hand, just to make sure…
"Oh! Guys, it's in there!" She points at the door.
"Really?" Rurin looks around for a potential trap. But why would she set a trap in the first place? The large, heavy door into a locked room totally isn't a trap, right?
Vernicia and Angelina grimly nod, and the three of them drop to the floor.
As they approach the door, two earthmovers emerge from a nearby room.
The first earthmover points. "Um… isn't that a restricted access chamber?"
"Maybe they're authorized," the other earthmover says as the aeronauts open it and go inside.
"They aren't in uniform, though… wait! Stop!"
CLANG. The door shuts behind the three aeronauts, plunging them into almost-darkness. Then the lock re-engages with a smooth Whirr-clunk.
"Okay. We're not stuck here, are we?" Ru activates his night vision – the room is small and featureless, with only a glowing orange thing at the back of the room.
"Weird light source," Vernicia mutters. "Why don't they just put it on the ceiling?"
Rurin gives it a closer look – it's tall and flat like a mirror, somehow both transparent and opaque, reflecting strange, fractured shapes and silhouettes. "Weird," he mutters, moving to touch it. His hand stops centimeters away from the surface, though. Maybe not? Something feels off about it.
Angelina moves next to him, also staring at it. "Sentient orange juice," she murmurs.
"No cabinets, no panels, no other doors." Vernicia huffs a sigh. "What even is this place?"
"Is this really the only thing here?" Rurin gives the room one last once-over.
"Whatever," Verni says, walking up to the orange mirror-looking object. "If this is all that's here…" she looks back at her metal hand. "Yep, I think this is it."
"I sure hope so." Ru looks at the door, then back at the orange mirror thing. "I'd rather not take my chances here, to be perfectly honest."
Now all three of them are standing in front of it.
"Well. Nothing for it," Verni declares.
Rurin nods his assent. "What's the worst that could happen?"
With a silent affirmation, all three of them touch the object—
*
"Ow!" Rurin lands on his bum.
"Oof." Angelina faceplants next to him.
Clang-ang! Something else also lands on the floor.
"What the…" Rurin looks around – same dark room, same mirror-like orange thing. "Did it reject us? What happened?"
Angelina slowly gets up. Her large ponytail has come loose. "No… not the same, this room. Thinner door… more people, I sense them."
"Muh? I thought you could only sense magic," Ru says.
"I…" Angie starts feeling around, then begins touching her hair. "Heh? This, what's… eh??"
"N-never mind. We can figure that out later," Ru relents. "Verni, what's your status?"
No response. A tendril of Angelina's hair gestures at the metal thing on the floor.
"What the-?!" He does a double-take at Angie, then snaps to the metal – "Verni!?? What the hell is happening?"
Angelina pushes her hair out of her face. "Biometal, I think it is. Dead or not, though, I can't tell."
"Whaaat the…" Rurin casts an apprehensive look at the orange mirror. "Seriously, what is that thing?"
"Um…" Angie's hair undulates strangely. "Some kind of gate, I sense. One place, another place, this links several. Random, maybe?"
A gate… so it's magical after all? Maybe being aeronauts, they just reacted weirdly to it? Like allergies.
"I'll carry Verni; you try to find out where we are. Worst case, be ready for a fight," Rurin instructs, picking up the hunk of metal. Now that it's in his hands, the shape and size confirms that it's Verni. I mean, it's not like anyone else came through with them. Still, it's nice to have confirmation…
As Angelina raises her chargebolt rifle, her hair curls around its stock like a mass of tentacles. Then, KABANG! The door bursts into fragments in a flash.
"Tch. Frail," she mutters.
"I wonder if anyone heard. Beh, who am I kidding. Of course someone heard. Angie, take the lead."
Angelina nods, then carefully moves into the corridor. "Another facility, definitely. But coming this way… no one is," she reports.
"Clear? Really?" Ru looks around.
"Sense people, I still do," Angie says. "Um, somewhere. Nearby?"
The two (three?) of them walk down the corridor. So far, nothing is happening.
"So… this is weird, isn't it? No one's on this floor at all," Rurin says.
"But people, I'm still sensing them… next floor, maybe," Angie says.
"I'd feel better with both hands free," Ru mutters. "Maybe I'll strap Verni to my back."
Angelina's hair slithers towards him. "Carry her, I think I can."
"And your rifle? Don't push yourself."
Angelina's hair retreats. "Made you stronger, did it maybe?"
"What, the gate? I don't know," Ru says. "It affected all of us, though. So I should…" He feels around his body for a moment, but turns up empty. "Hmm."
Angie tilts her head.
"Yeah, we'll have to figure that out later. Let's keep going."
As they descend the stairs to the first floor, Angelina's hair starts moving again. "The front somewhere, they're there."
"I hear them. Let me put down Verni, then we charge on three."
Angelina thinks for a second. "The metal, you think it will keep her safe? Like a weapon, we could use her."
Rurin blinks, more confused than anything else. "Uhm, let's not do that."
"Tch." Angie begins pre-charging her rifle.
The moment they walk into the atrium, both of them jump back, covering with their wings. Well, Angie covers. It's a firefight!
"Crap," Ru grunts, ducking behind a barrier.
"See us, they don't," Angie says as she hops down next to him.
Risking another look, Ru sees what the guards and earthmovers are attacking – Marc and Zoë, both fully covered in metallic armor. Strangely, it doesn't look like the armor the Guy used to wear. Most notably, it's under their clothes instead of over it.
KABANG! Angie fires at the enemy squad, causing them to panic and fall back. Then they quickly move in to support the fusions.
Marc reloads his pistols with live ammo. "Angie, Rurin? What're you guys doing here?"
"We'd like to know that too." Rurin points at Marc's fit. "New battle armor?"
"Kind of. Get down!" They hide behind the barrier as a guard fires her machine gun at them. "Anyway, it's really weird. Mom showed me how she produces her own armor– it just expands over her body from her metal bits. Turns out I can do that too." The armor even covers their faces, giving Marc's voice an echoey reverb to it. "No bells or whistles, but it's way better than nothing."
"Can you see through that?" Ru wonders. Then an earthmover lobs a bomb at them.
The explosion bathes the area behind the barrier in fire and smoke. Angie peeks out through her wings. Ru is gone!
Zoë raises her rifle– bang, bang! The guard with the machine gun drops, but the earthmover only staggers. Both had been shot in the head with deadly accuracy.
Rurin suddenly dives behind the barrier again. "So much has happened. So much is still happening! What's going on here?"
"We haven't found much yet," Marc replies. "All I learned so far is that "Cryos" is a REALLY strong soldier – Mom, the solar beamer!"
Zoë quickly shoots the earthmover in the face. The cannon he's manning fires haphazardly – BOOM! The explosion destroys the wall near them.
"You missed AGAIN? Okay, next time I'm firing," an earthmover yells.
"Ow, I didn't miss! That metal lady shot me!"
Bang, bang! Zoë fires again, this time aiming for their necks. They both drop down, gagging, but that doesn't seem to have hurt them too badly either.
"How'd you guys kill them last time?" Marc asks as Zoë shoots down the remaining guards. "My nerbo can only stun them."
"Um…" Angie raises her rifle.
KABANG! The blast blows the last standing earthmover into the wall, where he slumps down, lifeless.
"Aha. Force damage, electric damage…" Zoë stows her rifle. Getting the hint, Rurin pulls out his ice gun and hands it to her.
"That'll work?" Marc looks doubtful, but Zoë cranks the dial and twists its nozzle. As the earthmovers behind the cannon are recovering, she fires at one of them– PEW! Instead of a ray of freezing light, an icicle-like bullet nails the earthmover in the head, killing him immediately. The final earthmover flinches, then ducks behind the cannon.
"It's just you and us now, earthmover," Zoë states, walking towards him. "Come out where we can see you."
"Heh… did you forget about this CANNON between us? You should choose your words more carefully if you want to survive!"
"Ten minutes," Zoë replies, continuing her slow approach.
"Huh?" He checks something on his side. "Crap!"
"Hmph. Your ineptitude continues to surprise me," Zoë says, her voice calm and even.
"I don't need in… inep… whatever you said," the earthmover retorts. "I have POWER!"
Then he suddenly leaps high into the air, coming down at her with an enlarged, lance-shaped arm. Zoë deftly sidesteps the brazen attack, letting him drive his spike into the floor where it gets stuck.
Then, PEW!
Zoë's armor flows off of her face as she returns to the others. "Now then, aeronauts. While you're here, let's compare findings."
Angelina looks around at the scattered bodies past the atrium, all the way to the lobby. "All these people, you killed them?"
"Yes. Now, did you complete your mission?" Zoë looks nonplussed.
"Uh… not really. It was weird," Rurin says. "If you guys are here, then this must be the wind farm facility, right?"
"Yeah. The forest facility was to the north," Marc nods, his armor also gone.
"I know! But something strange happened, and Angie's hair got weird, and Verni is metal!" Rurin holds his head in his hands. "Vernicia is metal. Ugh, what do we do?"
"Where is she? I'll take a look," Zoë offers.
The team stands around Verni's metal body. The vague outline of her face looks serene.
"Marc, try reaching her mind," Zoë instructs.
"Oh. Can't believe I didn't think of that." Marc closes his eyes for a moment. "Weird, I can't pick up on anything through the biometal… all I can really sense is that she isn't dead."
"Tell me how this happened," Zoë requests.
"There was this room in the forest facility that Selphia led us into," Ru explains.
Zoë's eyebrows go up. "Selphia? My old friend?"
"Is she? Uh, never mind. Anyway, we found this orange mirror thing," he continues, "some kind of gate."
"So she's still alive." Zoë's gaze has grown distant. "I'm surprised they never terminated her."
"Yeah, she runs an inn now," Ru nods. "Ahem, the gate! When we touched it, we ended up in a similar room in the back of this facility. But weird things happened to us in the process, and Angie's hair getting all floaty, and Verni's… whatever that is, and my, um. I'm not sure how it screwed with me yet, actually."
"So she still knows the secret code," Zoë says mostly to herself. "Hmph, those fools never changed it."
"Uh…"
"I remember secretly visiting her using it. The Markovell Portal," she muses.
"Markovell…" Marc rubs his chin. "I know that name. He was a space and relativity specialist, wasn't he? He often experimented in this weird principle called metatronics."
"Yes. That's what caused those changes to occur," Zoë confirms. "It seems to work exactly the same even now."
"What's the point of such a thing?" Rurin starts to fret. "What's wrong with just a normal portal?"
"Likely something Markovell wanted to try for a while," Zoë answers. "Once his company got Atticus's resources and funding, it was just a matter of time."
"Hum? Which company?"
"Metacorp."
"Erm…" Rurin decides to hazard a guess. "Is the 'meta' short for metatronics, then?"
Zoë nods. "The metatronics research and implementation corporation."
"I know Markovell died a couple years ago, but they never said why." Marc shakes his head. "I never did get to ask him about his business."
Rurin flashes back to the highly reactive stuff they'd detonated.
Zoë starts walking out of the atrium. "We can rest here for now. I'll go get supplies."
"I'll get in touch with Kit and her team," Marc decides. "We can plan our next move once everyone is connected."