Tunnel Rat

Chapter 291: Men in Tights Day

Milo stayed near Belinda's rooms in Section H, watching over Eric and Marisa until security and a medical team arrived. Eric's body armor caused some talk as the doctor on the EMT team realized how many bullets Eric had taken and how little damage had made it through. The set of armor Milo had made for him was greatly inferior to his own, simply the equivalent of an extremely good suit of personal body armor. Marisa saw the Claw Master logo on the chest and gave Eric a hard look when he wouldn't talk about it. He simply shrugged and said, "Maybe later, it came with an NDA." Wally had promised to look over the schematics and give Milo his analysis on making and marketing the armor. It was expensive to produce, but the Chairmen of Corporations or Heads of State didn't care what they spent if it meant living through an assassination.

He was currently resting in a small crawl space above Belinda's rooms. He'd pushed himself hard in that fight and still hadn't recovered from the earlier battle. After the fight, he'd retreated to her room, grabbed some snacks, and found a place to rest. Someone had conveniently left a half-dozen Snickers bars on a table. Belinda had introduced the gang to them, and Milo was a big fan of them.

He'd already been heading towards Belinda's area to investigate the recent break-in of the records vault further when he saw on his security cameras that Belinda's rooms had occupants, and one of them was Eric Kresthammer. He'd seen the sudden attack by Roger and prayed that Eric had worn the armored suit he'd sent him. When he survived the close-range gunshots, Milo knew he had. Marisa arrived to join the fight, and Milo realized that Roger wasn't totally human. Which frankly had scared the shit out of him. He'd just been in one fight where he'd almost died and wasn't anxious to be in another. But watching Eric die wasn't an option.

The fight had been scary. He'd known very little about what he was up against but had been certain Roger was some sort of augmented human, or cyborg when he got back up after taking that many bullets to his unprotected back. To design his own suit, Milo had studied all other forms of powered armor that he could find information on. This included technology for sub-dermal armor and artificial musculature. He'd become fascinated with the technology and fallen down a rabbit hole for two days, researching every type of augmented humans and the technology to create them. Besides looking for ideas on how to design his own suit, he was looking for clues on his own origins but gained no clues. The research had paid off today. While he didn't know exactly what Roger could do, he knew the possible range of capabilities. Which frankly had scared the shit out of him. He'd gone into the fight with his mind racing, determined not to let the larger man get ahold of him and wary about what weaponry he might have snuck past habitat security.

He was very glad he'd been careful. The small explosive grenades could have killed Eric and could have hurt him badly, depending on how close they exploded. Worse, if he was stunned, Roger could have simply picked him up and crushed the life from him in a few seconds or held on to one leg and swung him back and forth, smashing him against a wall. Roger had been quicker than a normal human but not nearly as fast as Milo. He'd immediately begun working on the weak spots at the joints, slowly carving away at Roger until he toppled. And as he'd expected, he went for the grenades he had left. If this had been a video game, he'd have scored a bonus for killing the boss with his own weapon. Here, it was a win followed by the need for a hasty retreat. He had no idea what you said to people after a fight like that and no desire to introduce himself.

Now that the fight was over, he was slightly bewildered by the unfolding events. In the game, he expected to get into fights all the time. But when had the habitat begun to spawn random encounters? After an hour-long nap, he continued to his main objective of coming to Manpower, the data storage unit. Someone had already tampered with it and opened it up. He'd assumed that would happen sooner or later when Belinda's ex-doctors tried to barter the data for some money or their release from prison. He had only begun working through it, but there was a treasure trove of scientific data in those files. He wondered how disappointed the thieves were to get into the hidden laboratory, crack open the data vault, and find it empty. He was anxious to look at his hidden cameras.

As he approached the area, he was surprised to see signs that someone other than him had used the air vents to gain access to the area. The signs were subtle but there. Scrapes where he or his equipment would leave none, scratches around access plates indicating they hadn't used hard rubber tools like he preferred. They were good but used different methods. From that point on, he went very cautiously, bringing out scanners and carefully examining every area before moving forward. It would be ironic for someone to get surveillance of him because he was over-anxious to get to his own devices. Sure enough, when he poked a probe into the room, he detected two miniature spy devices. He disabled them with a low-powered laser and then dropped into the room. Everything was the same. He didn't bother opening the vault; either it was empty, or something had been added. Probably something he didn't want to experience.

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His two cameras were still there. They were very simple devices that were unconnected to any system. They didn't broadcast a signal, couldn't access wi-fi, or send information over any route. They sat and recorded, using a low trickle of power. After retrieving them, he returned to the air vent system to look at the footage. As soon as he began, he was enthralled and barely able to breathe. He watched as five ninjas carefully gained access from the outside rooms and began silently working on the door. When they got bored, they sat down and played games on their phones. He knew instinctively who they were by their movements but waited for confirmation. That came when they found footage of his fight with the mercenaries.

They knew who he was and talked about him. It was really them: Bork, Zander, Algernon, Nina and Onyx. They were alive and had been in the habitat! So close! Watching them open the vault to find it empty was pure joy. They'd always competed with each other, and beating them this way made him happy in a way nothing else did. He wished he'd been there and could have dropped out of the ceiling, yelling, 'Surprise!' He watched the video repeatedly, rejoicing in having family again. Now, he just had to find them! He started by tracing their route into Manpower. As he suspected, the ninjas in dusty costumes had moved through the air ducts and mechanical levels. He started tracing their route, thinking it would begin near an entrance to the habitat, but instead, it took him to the sections belonging to the Rhebus corporation and currently under construction.

Of course...things slid into place in his mind as variables turned into known values. He reviewed the contracts between Claw Master, Rhebus, Genesis, and Manpower, seeing the connections. He retreated to his home, tapped into the data net, and spent the next eight hours reviewing all known data about Rhebus. Somewhere during that time, he made a connection to Freedom Engineering Group, who had worked for Manpower and now were overseeing the work for Rhebus in six sections of the habitat. That was them, too! It had to be. He desperately wanted to know what else they were doing and wanted to tell them about his own adventures...except, could he?

Could he tell them about Rusty and the hidden Quantum Fortress? About his dealings with Wally? How would they react? Thoroughly perplexed, he finally realized that he needed more information about them, and to do that, he had to find them. That might be difficult. Triggering their security systems could make them run, as he'd seen happen when they tried to hack into Claw Master and then got hacked by Wally in return. If they were even half as paranoid as he was, they'd be putting cameras and sensors throughout the duct work, access shafts, and maintenance tunnels. He'd have to use something different to scout Rhebus, and he'd have to start soon.

Ideas started spinning in his head. He could work on them while he helped Rusty with his problem, and went through the data from the security vault. And he desperately wanted to play the game he'd created with the gang. He only half remembered what he had made.

At that moment, less than a mile away, Bork dived for cover behind a couch as three Nerf arrows flew by. Zander poised heroically on top of a table. "I have Sir Borksalot on the run. Come, Prince Alnonger! We must hound the varlet until he yields and admits that your claim to the throne is just!"

Two arrows hit Zander in the back, accompanied by two beeps and a buzzing noise that signaled his demise. Algernon strode into the room. "Sorry, old chap, but a bag of jellybeans convinced me that I like the sound of King Borksalot better than King Alnonger. It would have just made me a target, anyway."

Bork rolled out from under the couch and paid the mercenary his fee. "Time to find the rest of the rogues! I'm sure they are hiding in the frozen foods! Let us be off; my butt itches to sit on my throne."

"Thank you kind sir. I must say, you seem to enjoy 'Men in Tights' day."

Bork led the way to the back room with the freezers full of pizza and snacks. "I do. Something about hunting down a worthy quarry always thrills me."

Two figures rose from hiding behind the ice cream dispenser, firing arrows, and both Bork and Algernon went down as a hail of projectiles bounced off of them from two nerf quad-crossbows. Nina turned to Onyx. "Hunting is always better than being hunted. Share the win?"

He nodded. "Half of a throne is good enough for me."