Seizing the Initiative...Part 3

As I helped to gather the wounded men from outside I was amazed at how many of these men I recognized from my time in the Necro Labs. Many of these guys were just glorified lab assistants, while others were clearly hired muscle of some sort. All of them were wearing the dark suits and accoutrements that were normally the reserve of actual agents, so this was quite the attempt to present the image of being an FBI task force of some sort.

Each of the captives were stripped of weapons, wallets, cell phones, PDA’s and fake credentials. The credentials I threw into a pile to be destroyed, while the weapons were unloaded and stacked up for Herne’s growing collection of confiscated firearms. (Although Moira claimed anything and everything with a sharp point, she had nearly a dozen blades of various sizes.) The cell phones and PDA’s were piled up next to one of the many desktop computers in the room to be reviewed and data-mined by Jim once he had the time.

The wallets were stripped of cash, credit and debit cards, state issued identifications and driver licenses and tossed into a bag that would be sent forward with the wounded.

Dr. Geek was now sitting cuffed to one of the chairs and trying his best not to look Cerrydwen in the face as she questioned him closely on a number of issues. His shattered nose had been patched up the best that we were able to do so, while his two front teeth had been bagged and put in his pocket for future use if the dentist in his soon to be new location could restore them. Jim had Dr. Geek’s laptop computer and PDA booted up on the desk nearby and was busy prompting Cerrydwen with the right questions to make sure he got all of Dr. Geek’s passwords, PIN numbers and encryption codes to his various accounts and programs. Of particular interest were his e-mail accounts and the various Necro Lab files he had stored on the computer. It was a veritable treasure trove of information on Drake’s organization and its members, associates and secret allies. He was clearly trying to resist giving up this valuable information, but he was no match for the Will the Cerrydwen applied to him whenever he lied or tried to refuse to answer. She constantly moderated her voice between calm admonishment to motherly approval and back to stern disappointment as needed to elicit the answers she demanded. I almost felt sorry for his ass, especially since the more she questioned him, even I began to feel like a disobedient child who had deeply disappointed his beloved mother...shit, I don’t know if even Drake could have matched her Will for Will.

John Red Bear, the Frau and John’s two students were busy tending to the various broken limbs and bones among the poor bastards who had been trapped in the building with me, and were doing their best to alleviate the suffering of the wounded. John had found the small case of syringes that one of the lab geeks had used to subdue Ravyn and was using the 8 or 9 remaining needles to put those in the worst shape to sleep. After he injected each one, he carefully tagged them by sticking the needle through some visible article of clothing and bending the needle in such a way as to form a harmless hook. This served the humanitarian purpose of alerting whichever medical personnel who next treated them as to what was used to put them out.

The Frau didn’t seem to need any medical equipment, as she moved among the bleeding, and often unconscious men, she would touch many of them, mumble a few phrases and immediately ease their discomfort. The poor soul who had tried to face down Moira and was cut up pretty badly also benefitted from her ministrations, with most of his wounds closing up without obvious bandages at her touch. The wounds seemed to scab over surprisingly fast when she touched them. Her matronly manner and soothing words calmed the fears of the still conscious.

Ravyn spent her time examining the control panel for the Transit Room. She appeared to have an affiinity for the gems that were placed near each set of symbols. Every few minutes she called out the location of another one of the symbols, excited perhaps by puzzling out the answers, but maybe also because of the surging energies that seemed to flow in and around the panel. She was still upset at me, so I didn’t bug her, leaving her to the new toy she had found.

After twnety minutes or so, there was a few moments of excitement as a surge of power lit up the control panel and then dissipated after a muted flash lit up the sealed Transit Room.

There was a lot of pounding on the door and some muted voices heard screaming profanities, but they obviously couldn’t get through the locked portal.

Ravyn called out shortly after they arrived and disturbed our work, “It looks like whoever they are, they came from Atlanta!”

Jim broke off his work with Cerrydwen and Dr. Geek and came over to the control panel. “Let’s send them somewhere else. Don’t want to make it too easy on them.”

I joined them at the panel and asked, “Which symbol is Atlanta?”

Whehn Ravyn pointed it out, I quickly smashed the crystal that connected to that symbol, extinguishing the mild glow that persisted after their arrival. “That should keep anyoner else from coming from there, now let’s send them packing.”

Ravyn pointed out another symbol and said, “That should be New York. Hope they dressed warm!” With that she placed her hands on that symbol, energy seemed to flow from her hands into the symbol for New York and then up into the crystal that was connected to it. There was a throb of power and a flash of light from behind the shield covering the window into the room, and then silence. “They should be gone.”

I unlatched the window shielding and raised it up, observed that the room was indeed empty, then dropped the shield back down into place. Then I reached down and destroyed the crystal for New York. “There, they won’t be coming back this way from there either.”

Jim looked at Ravyn, “Which of these is the most remote location here?”

Ravyn studied the panel. “Well, this is Chicago, this one is Washington DC, let’s see...ooh here is Vancouver!”

“OK,” I said, “Who’s up for a scouting trip to Vancouver?”

“We’ll go,” said Herne, with Moira nodding excitedly. “But I’ll want to see how that thing works so we can get back easily enough.”

John piped up, “Shane here will go as well.”

With that, we unlocked the door quickly, Herne, Moira, Shane and myself piled into the Transit Room and closed the door behind us. We only had to wait for moment before a spinning sensation caused our vision to go dark, a sudden jerk and we were standing in another room just like the one we left, but with a slight variation on the painting scheme.

The door out was unlocked, in what must have been standard operating procedure when the places were idle, and the control room beyond was dark. A quick bit of exploring revealed this place to be remarkably similar in outlay to the place in Vegas, with computers, security cameras and desks lining the walls of the control room.

While the others checked out the outide perimeter, I went to the control panel and destroyed the crystals linking this place to Miami, Atlanta and New York, just to keep the chances of a nasty surprise reduced. I was careful to leave the Vegas symbol of a pair of dice alone.

The others returned shortly to report that the place did seem to be pretty remote. They confirmed that there were no vehicles in the parking lot.

“OK, let’s get back and report this to be a good place to send our captives. But first let me eliminate the possibility that anyone else will use the roundabout way of getting here.”

I then smashed all of the crystals in the control panel except the Vegas symbol, and then stepped back to let Herne set the panel for transport. He did so quickly as the rest of us got back into the room. He joined us moments later, shutting the door just in the nick of time to join us in our dizzying return trip.

Upon our return, I smashed all of the crystals in our own panel, except the one connected to the Bear symbol that represented Vancouver.

We then began the tedious task of loading 5 or 6 of the wounded at a time into the room and transporting them to Vancouver. I went on each trip, since the vertigo had less of an impact on me, and I could easily move event he largest of the wounded men. I quickly got the hang of activating the device and jumping back into the room just in time to make the return trip.

By the time Dr. Geek was the last of the wounded captives remaining, he looked thoroughly drained and beaten. Cerrydwen put her arm around his shoulder, consoling him as she escorted him away from the grinning Jim, who was in his glory with all of the data he had mined from the beaten scientist.

I went over and slapped the bastard on his back, “Gee Doc, aren’t you glad you didn’t get a chance to load me up with all those weapons you had planned? I don’t think you would have survived the results of that.”

He looked at me blankly, I’m not sure he even recognized me at that moment. I escorted him into the Transit Room and shut the door behind him.

Ravyn sent him to join his men. “There,” she said as she did so, “let him figure out what to do in a foreign country with no ID’s no money, and no way to get out quickly!”

I smashed the last link between this Transit Point and the rest of their network when I crushed the crystal connected to Vancouver’s symbol. “Now what?” I asked, looking at my friends, who all looked visibly relieved to be done with the prisoners.