Super Jaded 2 - Chapter 4 (Patreon)

Chapter 4: Redoubt

"You're going to want a respirator," the doctor said casually, indicating towards the heavy duty industrial breathing protection and coveralls hanging from pegs on the antechamber's wall with a half-hearted gesture, "This place is an old lead mine, and even with state of the art filtering in the lab itself, this corridor is safest when there's a bit of the stuff always floating in the air."

Once their guests did as requested, they punched in the keycode, scanned a code on the wrist of their suit—which was a skin-tight apparatus beneath their coat—moved closer to perform a retina scan, and pulled the key from their neck to unlock the physical deadbolt. Air buffeted the three as the antechamber opened to a roughly hewn tunnel, barely tall enough for them to walk with a slight crouch, and she beckoned the two forward.

As they began the long and somewhat-winding path down, Iris glanced around the dull dark-gray walls and through the cloud of dust which seemed to cover everything in sight. Unfortunately that included the goggles of her respirator mask, but she idly considered that it would've been far worse if it were in her eyes and lungs.

Her eyes flitted to the side of her view, judging the reaction of her erstwhile companion as best as she could. Anya simply trudged forward, grimly directed toward their destination with her eyes looking farther down the brightly-lit shaft.

After what felt like an hour, but was in reality less than half that, the three reached another heavy door. The doctor once again went through the long process of unlocking it, then stepped into the airlock alongside the other girls. Once the door slammed shut and the air cycled, the three shed their protective clothing and allowed the inner door to open and reveal the lab itself.

While it wasn't expansive, the halogen-lighted main room seemed to be laid out to maximize the number of different chemical mixing and refining machines that could fit while still allowing some room to walk around. Offshoot rooms seemed to hold a conference table, some rudimentary bunk beds, and some sort of office, but the vast majority of the space was taken up by lab equipment.

Iris' jaw dropped and she tried to take in the sight before her eyes, and it took her several moments to force out what her mind was screaming at her to say. "What... Why would anyone build this?"

The doctor gestured the women to follow once more, and they led their guests through the center of the lab to weave among the mostly-empty benches, "Ever since Nina Eternal was revealed to the world, basically every government on the planet realized how terrible it'd be to have her on their bad side. Still, some of the more affluent ones wanted a plan B in case it inevitably happened. This place was a part of that plan. You tailor the defenses of a fort to your enemy, and when your enemy is a walking WMD with none of the usual weaknesses a warhead has, normal armor or shielding isn't an option. So they opted for stealth."

They tapped a touchscreen, causing it to blink to life and show a cross-section of the facility in its entirety. At the very top of the diagonal tunnel was the mountainside itself, the sloped entry door recessed behind a thin layer of brown, while the complex itself was rendered in mainly whites and greens with the occasional red.

"The lead blocks x-ray vision, it's powered, heated, and cooled using a geothermal and heat pump setup, and the entire facility is lined with copper mesh to act as a Faraday cage in case she could perceive electrical radiation. Outside of that is seismic and acoustic damping, and basically the only thing that could detect it would be some sort of exotic particle detector and a hell of a lot of patience. Obviously, most people thought it was unthinkable that the all-loving, all-powerful Nina Eternal would ever turn against us but... Well, those people are dead now and I'm not, so I suppose that tells you how well their plan worked. Anyway, this lab has all the equipment needed to rapid-prototype both biochemical and mechanical countermeasures, but the problem was they could obviously never test any and even the things they did come up with weren't exactly common or cheap. In the early 2010s, the government finally had enough and spun the project down."

With their tour of the facility's defenses, as they were, complete, the doctor nodded to an expectantly-waiting Anya.

"And how do you know about all this? If it's some top secret project that nobody has ever heard of?" the blonde asked, her voice equal parts curious and accusatory.

"I used to work here,” the doctor admitted. "It was a brave new world once the world's first superhero appeared, and anyone who might know anything about her was pretty aggressively recruited. Thankfully, given that most moved on to academia or died around Zero-Day I'm probably the only one left who knows anything about it. Which... Probably makes this the safest place on the planet for hiding from Ms. Etana and Ms. Chang as long as you haven't drawn the full sum of their ire. But that is enough equivocation from me, you are both here for a purpose aren't you?" They half-asked, half-stated while gesturing toward the outlying rooms.

"I mean, we're here because you invited us aren't we? Something about promising to explain why you're— Like this?" Anya quipped, reaching over toward Iris to take her phone back.

"Not quite. I promised that I would explain but I said nothing about 'my whole deal'." Loken responded with a frown, "What I am going to show you cannot ever leave this room, both for the importance of its survival and the importance of your survival." They moved toward the first room, tapping on the window and causing the lights within to turn on and reveal a number of wicked-looking turrets holding both strange, bulky arrays of boxes and a number of radar dishes, "These, for example, are completely useless. They were deployed during the Zero-Day incident, and even if they managed to incapacitate Ms. Etana all they really did was piss Ms. Chang off. Like I mentioned, nothing here could be tested formally and the price for that was paid in lives. You probably don't want to toy with them though, they'll kill you plenty easily." Loken added casually.

Iris raised an eyebrow, "So that's why we're here? To find out about how useless everything is and how fucked we are?"

Loken shook their head once more, "No, but before I get to the things that might work I thought you might appreciate knowing a bit about how people far smarter than you with functionally unlimited resources tried and failed to do. If you know a direction is worthless to follow, then you don't have to waste time following it. And these, unfortunately, were a waste of time."

This time, Anya perked up, "So what about you, then? What were you wasting your time on while you were here? After all, it seems like Nina and Fern are still out there aren't they?" She asked with a raised eyebrow.

"I will get to that in a moment, child. Patience is a virtue," Loken stated testily.

“So is Temperance, but that doesn't mean I'm not helping put my dealer’s kid through college.” Anya retorted before suddenly seeming to realize her current situation once more, “I mean… Uh– Just get on with it OK? We already know what doesn't work.”

Loken’s palm and face were briefly introduced to each other before they activated the lights in the next room. This one was full of rack after rack of blinking computer hardware, most of it at least a decade and a half old at this point. Anya’s eyes seemed to glimmer with predatory intent for a moment before she forced her impulses down and allowed the doctor to speak. 

“Some people thought shooting them was a bit of folly, so instead they tried to outthink Nina—not exactly a difficult task from an applied knowledge perspective but certainly impressive by a raw computational one. It was supposed to be able to come up with some sort of mental conditioning or hypnotic pattern which would trap her mind in a logic loop, but nowadays it mostly just exists to keep the rest of Project Redoubt’s systems running.” 

“What about that one over there? Why does it have a different door than the others?” Iris indicated the last of the four chambers, specifically the heavy-duty windowless door secured by a locking wheel and a handprint scanner. When Loken glanced its way, they grimaced slightly.

“That… Is where the Unthinkable Option is kept. It's better you don't know what that means, but suffice to say that if we were to use it then the situation is so dire that even the potential death of humanity itself is an acceptable cost for mission success. Even I haven't been in there myself, it was all Dr. Giesling’s work.” They turned toward the remaining dark area, activating its lights to reveal a room full of large and complicated-looking machines. Vats, reaction vessels, and analysis equipment were all arrayed together with a number of industrial robotic arms placed throughout to move reagents around semi-automatically.

“This is what I was ‘wasting my time’ on.” Loken’s smile was perceptible even through their mask, “Behold, the only independently controlled lab on the planet that is fully equipped to create the Etana Serum. It took a while to crack some of the more intricate steps, but the old man always was brilliant.” 

Anya and Iris both stopped, and it took several long moments for the latter to speak up again, “Bullshit. Nobody can make the Etana Serum, otherwise everybody would have a Nina Eternal on their side by now.”

“Plus, no offense but you don't exactly look the part of a superhuman. You're… what was it you said? Intentionally painfully mundane?” Anya added, prompting another grimace from Loken.

“It's not that simple.” The doctor forced the words out through gritted teeth, their composure finally running somewhat thin, “Yes, every government worth their salt is trying to recreate the serum. All have the ingredient list, Ms. Etana’s escapades ensured that, but the proportions, order of reactions, and techniques used remain a secret known only to her and her late grandfather. Add in the fact that any researcher found to be working on such a project by Ms. Chang and Ms. Etana will invariably be killed and there is only so much advancement that can be made. A few nations have made some appreciable progress in one portion of the process or another, usually in private labs with no knowledge of what they were actually trying to make so they wouldn’t be destroyed, but no project lasted long enough to put all that accumulated knowledge together. No project except mine, of course.” 

The Doctor made a flourishing gesture before tapping a swift combination of buttons on the door. In turn, one of the robot arms within opened a high-pressure cryogenic container to produce a quartet of deep-crimson vials alongside a large plume of Nitrogen steam. 

“This is the reason I’ve brought the two of you here. Two doses each, and with them the opportunity to do what you claim you want to do. There is only a single requirement: You are going to kill Nina Etana and Fern Chang.” Loken stated affirmatively.

There was a pregnant pause in the room. Both women’s hearts skipped several beats, their hungry eyes gazing upon the bottles of liquid gold before them like rare idols at the center of an ancient temple.

“Holy… There’s no way that’s real right?” Iris asked Anya as quietly as she could manage, nudging the hoodie-wearer in the process.

“I mean everything else seems real so I don’t know why we’d doubt this any more than that. Plus, what would they do if it was a bluff and we said yes? This doesn’t seem like the kind of thing you’d want to lie about, y’know?” Anya’s eyes remained pointedly focused on the vials as she spoke, and her tone seemed not entirely present in the conversation.

“I assure you that these are real, though obviously I doubt either of you have the expertise or equipment to test them yourself regardless. So I would encourage you to not worry yourselves, if I wished to deceive you there are certainly ways which would be less likely to end in my death— Not to mention, far cheaper. I am asking you very little in exchange for the opportunity to become among the most powerful people on the planet.” 

“Yeah, all we have to do is kill Nina and Fern. A task which nobody has tried before and definitely doesn’t have a zero-percent survival rate. Plus, didn’t Fern brag that she got three doses?” Iris muttered, shaking her head.

“Third video, fifteen minutes and twelve seconds in. Right before she threw a fighter jet through that Prime Minister’s office window.” Anya continued.

Loken’s demeanor grew more serious, “Ms. Chang was empowered by, frankly, an idiot. The more of the Etana Serum you take, the more likely you are to experience a runaway thermokinetic excursion: To explode, that is. Three doses is almost certain suicide, and I have already used what resources I could procure in order to ensure that you each could receive two. Still, there are two of you and one of each of them. Split them up and you should have no problem even if it is likely that in an individual fight you would be bested. Do not fight like a moron, and you won’t die like one. Any more questions?” They asked harshly.

Anya shook her head, flashing Iris a wan smile, “I say we do it. I can’t think of any other ways that they’ll ever face consequences, and don’t pretend you haven’t thought about what you’d do with all that power.” She stepped a bit closer to her companion, jostling her shoulder.

“I haven’t, but… I guess you’re right.” Iris glanced back up toward the vials, then toward Loken, “Let’s get this over with. What do you need for us to do?” 

Loken nodded, “You two? Nothing. I'll handle it all from here. But there is one thing I forgot to add—the commonality between Ms. Chang and Ms. Etana that allowed them to take the serum without it burning their body to dust.” They reached a hand into their coat, clearly waiting for a response.

“And what was that?” Iris responded. By the time the words left her lips the object Loken was seeking to retrieve was finally recognizable. Before either she or Anya could react, the sleek black handgun had already deposited a slug into each of them with a sharp bang that echoed throughout the lab.

“They were on the edge of death.” Loken stated casually as they returned the pistol to its holster and watched both young women slump to the ground.