Book 2: Chapter 193: Considerations |
Dark corridors of steel and stone stretched out for hundreds of feet before them, shadows tinted in shades of green and grey as night vision compensated for the lack of light. The two mobile prisoners stumbled blindly forward, hands cuffed behind their back, while Carver wheeled Charleston along in his chair. She was flanked by her two squad mates, and Dan took up the rear. Any one of them could have produced a flashlight to help the struggling pair in the front. None of them did.
Their footsteps dissipated in the wide space, unsteady footfalls mixed with the march of heavy boots. High above, from the top of the staircase, the pounding of fists against steel echoed again and again in thunderous refrain. The Geists mechanically chipped away at the barrier before them, but without the proper tools or upgrades, they would make no progress. Dan's group proceeded forward, finally free of pursuit, and soon the clamor could no longer be heard.
Once it was clear they would be free of pursuit, Carver broadcast an update to the rest of her teams in the building, "Be advised, invisible assailants present in the building. Engage stalker protocols and keep an eye out for ambushes."
This news was received poorly, as the rest of the feds were taking cover inside various rooms, staying out of sight of the mesmerized civilians. It seemed like the simplest strategy to avoid triggering whatever violence they were meant to enact, but it also put everyone in an extremely unfavorable position for dealing with roaming bands of invisible assassins. There was nothing for it, though. They could only hole up and bunker down, while Carver and her crew did their best to resolve the situation. For now, they could only continue to explore the dark depths of the Evo Church.
Another underground hidey-hole, Dan thought. He supposed it was inevitable, given the ready availability of excavation upgrades. Building downwards was cheap, easily hidden, and safe. The difficulty most sensory upgrades had with ground penetration was just gravy. Dan was, while probably not unique in this regard, at least rare in his ability to scan deep below the earth. At least this particular lair wasn't laden with booby traps. It seemed the Evo Church used the space with some regularity.
The layout of the underground was similar to the honeycombed offices above. There was a main corridor that split the center of the church, wide as a semi-truck and as long as the property. From there, dozens of doors and hallways branched off in every direction. There were marks on some of the doors, standing out white and bright in sight of Dan's night vision. These were special markers placed by the scouting squad, to keep their backup on the right path.
The trail continued down the main corridor for quite some time, and Dan used the walking time to search the nearby rooms for life. His veil found nobody and nothing. The federal raid had emptied out this place like a warren of rats faced with a cat. There were broken bits and bobs, places where technology or evidence or prized possessions had been pried out of the very walls in a rush. Dan found living spaces, beds and bathrooms, dressers and more. An entire community that lived within and below the church. Did any of the priests go home at the end of the day, or did they just descend?
The march continued as an update came in from the scouting team, radio crackling and unsteady with interference.
"We've found something," they said, and an image came through the link. Dan pulled it up through his HUD and examined the twisted, broken remains of the church's cosmic generator. It was unrecognizable save for its location. Otherwise, it looked like a pile of scrap metal. The surroundings, though, were unmistakable.
"I take it the Evo Church isn't registered for that sort of thing," Dan commented.
Carver shook her head even as her squad mates high-fived each other. "Absolutely not! They might be able to throw some blame for this clusterfuck at me or Edict here," she patted Charleston's shoulder, "but there won't be any squirming away from the consequences of an illegal cosmic generator."
A horrible thought occurred to Dan.
"Do they have one of those?" he asked. "Can you prove it? Because all I'm seeing is a pile of crap."
"...That's a reasonable point," Carver admitted, some of the wind falling from her sails. "It'll be up to our recovery teams. They were clearly in a rush, so hopefully the scrap job was sloppily done."
"You've got plenty on the church already," Dan pointed out. "This gigantic underground area was not on any of the plans you showed me."
Carver waved a dismissive hand. "I'm looking for more than building code violations now. If we can prove the church is manufacturing their own upgrades here and distributing them across the country, we might put an end to the entire system! It's way bigger than just taking down one location, headquarters or no. This cult isn't a small one, and stripping them of their legal protections is the first step to dealing with their poison."
"Guess we'll see," Dan said. "I'm sure they've got some fail-safes in place. Nobody gets this big by being stupid."
"There's a difference between stupidity and complacency," Carver replied. "Without the latter, we'd never catch anyone." She gave more orders to the scouting party ahead, telling them to continue forward and find whatever exit the priests were using. The group continued to follow the trail markings, as the main path stretched ever onwards.
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"We're walking in a straight line, towards the center of the building," Carver observed. "How are those priests expecting to escape like this?"
Dan was asking that very question himself, as he mapped out the maze-like corridors on their left and right. He kept expecting to find a tunnel leading away from the building, some kind of escape chute to the surface beyond the parking lot, but only found the occasional staircase top-side, to hidden rooms sprinkled throughout the church's first floor.
The main path was at a small incline, and every step forward brought them deeper underground, but it couldn't go on forever. At some point, it would have to level out. If there was no hidden exit, they'd find a big clump of priests hidden in a room somewhere, but that wouldn't solve the hostage problem above.
Carver must've noticed the same thing. She triggered her radio, broadcasting to all channels, "How are the civilians looking upstairs? Any changes?"
"No changes," came the reply. "They're all still following your progress through the walls. It's fucking creepy, sir."
Carver swore aloud. She shoved Charleston forward, catching up to her nephew who was blindly stumbling along. She shoved him forward, snarling, "You better hope what you did to those civilians is reversible."
Zachary crashed onto the floor with a pained grunt, and his aunt hauled him back onto his feet. Blood gushed down his face. His nose bled freely once again, dripping down the front of his robes and splattering across the floor. He moaned weakly, looking young and pale and afraid. Something in Dan's gut churned at the sight, but the young man had brought this upon himself. Dan had no more pity to muster.
"Keep moving!" Carver ordered coldly, and prodded Zach ever forward.
The central corridor finally ended at a pair of wide doors, marked with scouting paint. The two squaddies brought the prisoners to a halt and parked them against the wall. The exhausted pair of priests slumped to the floor with identical groans, not even managing a complaint as their feet were zip-tied. Charleston was kept blindfolded and gagged, his wheelchair parked beside his companions and locked in place with another ziptie. Anyone stealing him out of there would be carrying dead weight the whole way back.
Armed and unburdened by prisoners, they entered the large dousing chamber. It was much the same as Dan remembered it, with a visible viewing platform high above the smooth stone chamber. They didn't have much time to take things in, however, as a radio call came almost immediately.
"We've got a live one," said one of the scouts. "Sir, you better come see this."
Carver hurriedly lead them through another set of doors marked with trail paint, down another branching corridor. They moved through five more sets of doors, not bothering to sweep their surroundings, and found themselves in a small, circular room with an upraised platform at its center. In front of the platform was the remains of a computer terminal, thoroughly destroyed. The two scouts were waiting for them there, with a handcuffed priest held between them. Dan recognized the man as the Elder who had bargained with Senator Madison.
He looked incredibly smug.
"Agent Carver," he greeted. "I've been told you're in charge." His hands were handcuffed, but not bound behind him. He held them out in greeting.
Carver ignored him, walking right past to inspect the platform. She circled it briefly, visibly cycling her HUD's vision settings. Dan's veil swept the thing, but it was a confusing mess of electronic fuckery that he couldn't even begin to make out. It was certainly unlike anything he'd seen before.
"This is a teleporter pad," Carver finally announced, her voice flat as the floor. "Where does it lead?"
"I've never taken it," the Elder said with a helpless shrug. "I wouldn't know."
Carver stared him down. "I hope you realize you've just made fugitives of your entire Brotherhood."
"Not at all!" the Elder protested with a smile. "We were given no lawful orders to stay. In fact, we were told a dangerous criminal was on the premises, so it's only logical to flee."
"You're still here," Carver pointed out. "Why?"
"Ah." The Elder's smile turned sad. "I'm afraid that a guilty conscience held me back. You see, I am the one who employed Mr. Charleston; the one you call Edict."
"You're the fall guy." Carver scoffed. "Save your confession. We'll be rounding up every last one of your people, and charging them with everything under the sun." She waved a hand at their surroundings. "None of this was on the blueprints, and we passed a dousing chamber on our way here. At minimum, you're looking at a revoking of the church's religious exemption." Her faceplate went translucent, showing a vicious, violent smile. "I'm not interested in the minimum."
"I think you'll find things a little more difficult than that," the Elder replied, unperturbed. "How many of our flock can you prove used these tunnels? How many can you prove knew about their existence at all? I think our Brothers will be safe, from that. As for Mr. Charleston, I take full responsibility for his hiring and the consequences thereof. I failed to perform a proper background check. Of course, I didn't realize he would use his powers on our flock. I would have never given him the sermon platform, if that were the case."
Carver laughed at him. "We've got two of yours recorded saying this was a plan to defend the church. My own idiot nephew knew the trigger phrase to set Charleston off. I wonder how much of this was even up to Edict, or if you've been drugging him up to the gills this whole time. He certainly seems pliable enough right now."
"Brother Charleston's current state is a recent event," the Elder lied as easy as he breathed. "We thought, perhaps, a seizure? We would've taken him to a doctor if the condition persisted. As for your nephew, well, when a young man is faced with angry, armed agents, he'll say anything. Scared, and panicking, he feared for his life, and came up with a story to placate you. There is no trigger phase. Mr. Charleston acted out his own will to control our flock. We would, obviously, never allow such a thing if we'd known about it."
"The man is drooling into his wheelchair as we speak," Carver laughed again. "There's no will there to speak of."
"Are you a doctor?" the Elder asked curiously.
Carver scowled at him, then blacked out her faceplate. "Wrap him up," she ordered. "I'm calling for backup. We need to get this teleporter working again, so we can get the hell out of here."
"Ah, yes," the Elder agreed, as he was pulled away. "The civilians upstairs are certainly a problem. Who knows what might happen to them if Mr. Charleston is brought out of their range. Why, they might be stuck like that forever."
Carver stiffened, swore under her breath, and spun around. "That's a big claim, coming from someone who knew nothing about it."
The Elder raised his hands again, handcuffs rattling, the very picture of innocence. "I'm only speculating. As I said, this is all Mr. Charleston's doing. I was only suggesting I am brought to the man. Perhaps I can... talk him down. Make him release our beloved parishioners."
He let the suggestion linger, and into the silence, added, "For some legal considerations."
