Grasping at straws (Private: Capt'n Sinnarr)

by **Neodraconis** July 30th 2014, 3:47 pm

I really didn’t think this through.

A low humming from the fluorescent lights in the ceiling was the exception to the otherwise silent hallway that Derek was skulking through. But Derek knew that the silence was a lie. There was no way the organization would leave one of their bases unguarded, even at the dead of night. Somewhere around here, someone would be waiting. But he was ready. The cool temperature in the building didn’t bother Derek, not even as it dropped drastically when he cautiously rounded a corner. However, the temperature drop was curious. The young man slowed his steps and searched for the reason behind this curiousity. Nothing special caught his eyes as they roamed the sterile looking walls and ceiling. What was he even doing here? He had sacrificed everything to escape these guys and now he was desperately trying to get the revenge he childishly craved.

It had taken him an almost a suspiciously short amount of time to hear about this place. Crescent Organizations local Chicago base. Not the official one of course, since that one was squeaky clean from all illegal activity. After just a few weeks of running around as “The Shard” and threatening the criminals he stumbled across, he had found someone who had connections with the local Crescent Organization couriers. Apparently, the Chicago division mainly focused on smuggling and harboring high class technology devices. And this guy he had stumbled upon was one of the minor smugglers. Someone far down the chain. Probably more hired to spread the word through the proper, or rather improper channels than to actually do anything of importance for the organization. He didn’t even know about the front, the “fake” local base. The thug did however have a rumor about a new advanced computer that had the ability to shut down all electrical devices in its proximity. If Derek would listen to the rumor its radius was enough to cut the electricity to entire cities at a time. It seemed farfetched, but by grasping at that straw, he had now, weeks later, found the haystack. Or at least, he hoped so.

Derek’s gaze was drawn towards a flow of steam that was flooding out from the gap between the floor and a metal door farther down the hall. Almost forgetting to sneak, Derek walked to the door. When he got close it was obvious that the steam was the source of the cold. But for some reason, knowing that only made him more uneasy. Why hadn’t he been caught yet? Or at least seen another living soul guarding this place? And now he was facing a mysterious door that probably had something incriminating behind it, maybe even the legendary computer from the rumors, with no obstacles in his way. Sure, he had been faced with a couple of security cameras and other measures to keep people away on the way into the building, but nothing human. By cracking the glass camera lenses he had easily been inside in a matter of minutes. It was simply too easy. This was feeling more and more like a trap, but it was too late to turn back now. So Derek turned towards the door and considered his options. First he placed an ear towards the door. It was cold to the touch. Derek felt an involuntary chill run down his spine as he listened for something, anything from the other side of the door. To his surprise, he actually heard something, but it wasn’t from the door. It was from the other side of the hallway. It sounded like steps, but then the sound stopped abruptly. Had he simply imagined it? Or was he just being watched, observed? Derek, dressed as his alter ego “The Shard”, stared down the corridor but the dim lightning gave his vision minimal support. However, even though he was staring, the white lenses without pupils on his eyes kind of made it hard to tell he was. Not knowing what was out there was killing him. So, preparing for anything, Derek called out. “Who’s there? Show yourself.” The relatively inexperienced vigilante tried imbuing his voice with as much confidence as possible, but only succeeded partly. After all, who knew what, or who, was lurking in the dark?

by **Capt'n Sinnarr** July 31st 2014, 6:37 pm

A while ago, word had reached him from one of his various satellites that there was a rather potent organization at work, handling the kind of thing Vergil had been working to stop for several years now. Having infiltrated many facilities already, he had only been able to figure out so much about them before he hit a dead end again. Not thinking too much of it himself, he let his supercomputer work on the group called Crescent, piecing every single bit of information he could get his hands on together. Once the computer picked enough up, it knew how to route the many satellites under it's control to more accurately pay attention to their movements by using known patterns and algorithms to eventually flush their activities out by teaching itself how to distinguish Crescent activity from that of mere thugs and lowlifes. Even for a super computer, working out the kind of algorithm that flushed out the kind of people that did not spare any money when it came to concealing their actions was something that took time, a lot of time. Years went by before the computer could actively track Crescent activity, and even than, all it could do was track that which happened in America, Canada and small portions of South America. By the time several possible locations had been uncovered, the computer believed that the best place to hit would be in Chicago, Illinois. Letting out a deep sigh when Vergil saw the destinations and how they were all quite far from his cozy little Tower, it did not take long before the Vault computer came up with alternative plans.

"Sir, if you do not wish to go yourself, I can send the Overlord and the Troglodyte to do it for you, though the chances of collateral damage would increase exponentially from a small 5% to a 66% chance.".

"Don't worry about it, i'll do it myself. I would like to see the kind of stuff these people have gotten their hands on with my own eyes. If anything is remotely worth mentioning, i'll have the omninites scan it and send it back to you for processing. Until then, please keep searching for more activity and let me know if there is something going on in my vicinity. Get the suit ready, i'm heading out right now.".

-Several Hours Later-

Flying as fast as he could while remaining low enough to not startle the military by avoiding any kind of sensor arrays, he maintained a constant energy flow to his cloaking device. Needing no external energy sources, the otherworldly superhuman abilities Vergil possessed were more than enough to power the Battle-suit he was in. That was not the only benefit though, one of the major benefits of this power was that it was not an electrical source, making it even harder to trace by most sensors. Passing through possible hidden defenses that had been set up without being detected, he let his field of invisibility down, all the while hovering so as to not make any sound that might alarm any of the people that had missed his entry, even though he had not really seen a living soul for as long as he had been here. Upon reaching the building, opening the doors was not that hard at all. Heating his gauntlets and channeling his abilities to the point where they could melt through metal, he extended a single finger, cutting through the door at a decent pace. Starting to believe that the place was deserted, he figured that it was about time to stop being overprotective and power down a bit. Stepping back onto the floor, soft footsteps could be heard to those that were actively paying attention to it, the steps also giving away that they were not dealing with a human being, unless it was the kind that wore metal shoes. After a few minutes, he finally walked into a place that seemed like a storage room, though there was not really a lot of intimidating stuff there.

As he passed through the room, he found some devices that seemed unfamiliar to him, something that was already a peculiar thing to a man that was known as one of the technological geniuses of his time. Regardless of him knowing what it was, he made sure to leave several of his omninites behind to scan the structure, figure out their purpose, send all information to the Vault computer and eventually tear down the construct so it would not be used by anyone ever again. This was his trademark routine, taking all information while leaving nothing useful behind for the bad guys. All of a sudden, he heard someone calling out from the end of the dark hallway. Luckily for him, the visor in his helmet was quite advanced and kept him from being blind in the dark. Landing his eyes on a young man that was probably around his age, he wondered if he was one of the people that worked for Crescent or if he was one of their buyers, ready to pick up the stuff he had already gone through and destroyed. If he was one of these two options, he could not be more than a delivery boy, not looking like he was a very important or dangerous figure. Deciding that he had no time for people like him, the best thing he could come up with was to make him think that he was no more than an automaton. Using his voice scrambling device to make his voice sound completely robotic, he only had so much to say to the man that might cause him trouble.

"Stand down civilian, do not interfere. Attempts at intervention will not be tolerated.".

by **Neodraconis** August 2nd 2014, 11:33 am

"Stand down civilian, do not interfere. Attempts at intervention will not be tolerated."

Okay. He was prepared for almost anything. He hadn’t expected this. It seemed to be some sort of robot talking to him, probably another half assed security measure. Derek decided to leave it alone as long as it returned the favor. After all, provoking it was both unnecessary and stupid. But he still listened closely for any possible attacks the robot might make against him. He had to assume the worst, like it being able to blast him to pieces with a laser beam. Though, the thought of him lying on the ground, blown to smithereens, wasn’t very comforting and made him feel uneasy once again. He turned towards the door, quickly pulled out two mirrors from his pockets, whereas he slid one of them through the cold steam and under the door to the other side. This was the only way he could think of to get through the door and away from this robot. The moment he was about to teleport, a though struck him. If this robot had a camera, Derek would be screwed. It would record him using his unique ability and would correctly assume that the one who broke into their facility was no other than the person who ran away from them just weeks ago. However, he saw no other way to get his revenge.

Derek focused his gaze on the other mirror’s shiny reflection and as let his thoughts wander a while before focusing on the other mirror. In his mind he pictured its simplicity, but also its details. Its metallic frame with a slight dent on its upper left side and that one spot that never gets clean no matter how much Derek tries. The clearer the mental picture gets, the more Derek fades until he seconds later vanishes from the hallway just to reappear inches away. A metal door being the only thing dividing him from what he firmly believes is a security robot.

The sight that Derek faced in this new room was more advanced than anything he had ever seen before. Cold steam dispersing from tubes filled with some kind of cooling agent. It seemed to keep the machine in the center of the circled cooled, or at least that was what Derek would guess. Not that he was a computer genius or anything. He wasn’t even sure it was a computer. It more looked like a ticking bomb you saw in those action movies. The ones that keep counting down to the end of a city, or worse, the end of the world, but that is always negated only seconds before the explosion. And if Derek was supposed to listen to the rumors, the only difference was that this time, the hero didn’t know how to stop the countdown.

by **Capt'n Sinnarr** August 4th 2014, 10:58 pm

Going about his business once the guy behind him took a step back, what little was left uncovered was soon taken care of by the nanites. While the nanites finished up their work, he himself kept his eyes on the other kid that seemed to not have expected something like him to show up all of a sudden. Watching his every move as he backed out more and more, his mechanical suit walked after him with heavy steps, letting him know that he was not alone. When a move was made towards the door, the unknown male took something out of his pocket, possibly a weapon. While basic fire-arms and knives would do very little to stop him, let alone dent his armor, he did not feel like getting shot at. Moving his fingers in a way that made it seem like he was preparing for a fight, his visor picked up a reflective surface, two of them. Seeing that he had only taken two pieces of glass from his pocket made him feel less inclined to go on the offensive. Sensing that all of the data and blueprints of the objects in the room had been uploaded to the hub, the kill-code was sent out, causing all of the mechanical constructs in the room to suddenly shut down and fall to pieces. Turning his attention back to the other person in the room, noticing that he was pondering on what to do after putting something under the door. Having finished his business in the room, the next thing he should do was to find out who this guy was before heading into the room behind the door. Walking towards him, his visor suddenly lost track of him completely, meaning he had for some reason managed to completely mask his presence or transport his matter somewhere else. While the concept of matter transportation, or simply put, teleportation was not that far fetched anymore, he still wanted to know how this guy had done it so effortlessly.

For a moment, he stood motionless, wandering if he had become invisible or if he had actually been able to somehow transport his matter to another location. He had not seen any devices on him, that much was for sure, meaning it was not somehow related to a device like his own. No, it meant that this guy, whoever he was, somehow had the ability to teleport himself away from places. Whether he had gone through the door and into the other room or just up and left was something he could not afford to think about right now. Right now, he had to get into the other room and leave the place once he was done with his work before people would get on his tail about this. Increasing his pace, he walked over to the door while again heating part of his metal shell for an offensive attack. Channeling the energy to his foot, he kicked forward, taking down the door that had been in his way and allowing passage into the next room. Once he set foot inside of the new space, the first thing that caught his eye was a large machine that stood in the center of the room. As far as he could tell, it used a lot of outdated technology in order to keep it cool, meaning it was used for some major tasks if so much effort was put into keeping it operational and hidden. As he walked through the seemingly cold steam that was hanging in the room, he once again caught sight of the person he still considered to be of little importance to him. Ordering his nanites to mass up on the tips of his fingers, the visor started scanning the machine for an entry point and a control pad, though no such things seemed to be added to the machine, a clever thing indeed. Whatever the people who set this device down here were thinking, they had been smart enough to not let hackers get close to it. When he said hackers, he meant the kind that did not have an advanced piece of battle armor filled with an army of nanites at their disposal.

Withdrawing some of the nanites from his index finger, he super heated it to the point where it could be seen just how hot it had gotten. Using it as a cutting tool yet again, he carved out a part of the metal casing from the machine, showing the interior to be filled with wires. Absorbing the heat back into his body, Vergil reached inside of the machine, grabbing a good amount of wires within his clenched fist. Releasing a large amount of nanites into the machine, he took his arm back out and generated a small control pad on the back of his left hand. As the nanites passed through every inch of the machine, it was only a matter of seconds before it was completely scanned, had all of it's defenses in complete override and became controlled by the Spectre Battle-suit. In less then a minute, the entire scary machine had become nothing more than a tool to be used in Vergil's spy games. Sending several orders into the army of nanites that had taken the machine over, he shut down all defensive systems throughout the building, remotely opened all hidden doors and copied a blueprint of the building into the suit. Leaving his nanites behind to do things for him from a distance, the first thing that came to mind was for him to head down the now open hatch in the back of the building in order to get down into the lower levels, though there was one bothersome thing that got in his way. For a reason that was currently beyond him, this guy had been stumbling around the facility just long enough to see Vergil in the process of doing his thing. For him, that was going to be a problem, for as far as he knew, the guy could be some sort of spy that would come back to bite him in the ass once he went further down into the building. Toning the scrambling of his voice down to the point where it sounded barely human again, he spoke up yet again, no longer trying to hide the fact that there was someone inside of the armor.

"Before I go back to doing my job, there are some things I have to know right now. I know that you have some peculiar power that allows you to transport your mass from one place to another, at least over a short distance. To me, that's all fine and dandy, though the thing that bothers me is your allegiance. You are either the only person in this small part of the facility for some reason, or you walked in here because of the lack of defenses around the building. A smart man would start talking by now. Oh, and If you don't want your balls torched, I would be honest".

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