Into The Belly Of The Beast

Posted on Wed Aug 12th, 2020 @ 3:27pm by Executive Officer Jake Ford & Chief Engineer Michael Burnstein & Jinx Jorasco & Leiddem Kea (*) & Nollel Livaam (*)

Mission: Mission 11 - Prospecting
Location: Equinox Industries
Timeline: MD03 22:30
3662 words - 7.3 OF Standard Post Measure

All the talks were over with, and Nollel stood outside the biggest cooperation she had ever worked with and just stared at the building, trying to make heads and tails of what she needed to do with the four people with her. She had not wanted to bring more than three, but two of them had refused to back down and not come along, one of them was possibly needed, and the last Leiddem wanted to come along to make sure everyone came back alive. It was later than she expected someone to be manning the desk, but it would be okay. She gave them a confident smile as she strode up to the front desk and had a word with the woman on the main desk, who laughed.

“It is always you wanting to give tours.” The woman giggled and held out the passes, looking at the group, offering a wave to them. The blonde strode back over to the three men and woman with a grin that she had had success so far, having gotten them into the building and past the only security that would be there for a little bit.

“She thinks I pulled you all at the bar and am trying to impress you to get one of you into my bed,” Nollel said with a shrug as she held out the passes to them and led them through the maze of corridors to her office, where they could properly plan the route down to where they suspected the man was being held.

Jake glanced at Burnie, wondering if there was more truth to that statement than they expected. "Well, we're in," he said softly. "So now we need to figure out where Gregnol is. Jinx? Burnie? Any ideas about how we find him?"

Burnie just threw a grin back at Jake, but then got more serious. "Scan for traces of bio-mimetic gel? It's probably not something they'd expect to have to cover too carefully since who would normally look for it?"

As the group set about trying to pick up a trail, Nollel set out packing the few personal belongings she had in the office into her backpack. It was highly unlikely she was ever coming back, and she travelled light, so it was just data sticks, padds, a cardigan, and a few bits and bobs. She said nothing to anyone, but she could feel a gaze on her, and looked up to see Leiddem staring with a frown at her. He did not like how he was seeing her in a different light at all. It was unnerving him when he needed to focus.

“I cannot get any readings in this direction, and there is nothing in this office,” he said aloud finally.

Jinx ran her science tricorder over the room, as well. “Would love to have Zambi now,” she murmured, though trying to sneak a raptor into the building might have been problematic. “Do we have schematics of this place? I vote next time we inject the captain with a tracer,” she said, to keep things light.

"I wouldn't be surprised if Jeassaho implants one herself once we get him back," Burnie remarked, trying to keep things positive, though he couldn't keep 'if we get him back' in his thoughts. "Equinox didn't have much we could access, and I'll bet even the map available to employees here won't include any rooms they'd prefer to keep secret, but we might be able to work them out by finding the blank places, like finding a cloaked satellite by looking for the spots that have too little background noise."

"Get to it," Jake nodded. He moved alongside Leiddem for a moment. "The girl. We still trust her?" he asked quietly, angling his head at Nollel.

Lieddem looked at Jake as he sided up to him and shrugged. He really did not know, her surface thoughts were jumbled, and nothing seemed suspicious about her. She genuinely wanted to help Gregnol, despite what it would cost her. She seemed to feel like she had a big debt towards the man that she was working towards. It made him wonder what had happened privately after the identity of the bomber had been discovered. “I do not feel anything untrustworthy about her,” the Betazoid replied in a soft whisper.

"Even so. Keep an eye on her; she's an Equinox employee," Jake noted. He looked over at Burnie and Jinx for some signs of progress.

Lieddem looked at Jake, surprised and impressed that despite everything the man was still wary of the potential trouble the woman could be leading them all into. It made him admire the man just a little bit more than he already did just by dating Eden. “I will,” he assured, glancing up to see the woman in question watching them. She knew, but it was to be expected from them all despite the amends that she had tried to make to them. Maybe when they got Gregnol back it would turn out better.

Burnie frowned at them, but there was little point in arguing here. "Based on the map, I'd say the best bet is sub-basement 3," he said, pointing to the schematic. "There seems to be a lot more area designated for HVAC than this building should actually need for that."

"Sounds like a solid place to start." Jake motioned to Leiddem again. "You and Ms. Livaam lead the way. It'll look less suspicious if it seems like she's leading a tour."

Nollel put the bag over her shoulder, knowing that they had not wanted her to go much further than here, but he was right, they needed her to show them around and make it seem legit for as long as possible. “Come on then,” she said, leading them back out putting on her best tour guide persona as she showed them this and that until they got to the lift that would lead them down to where they needed to go.

At her short height, piling into a lift with a bunch of people was rather awkward for Jinx. She tried not to stare at Jack’s firm posterior too much, but turning around just had her staring at Burnie’s crotch. She gave them an awkward smile. “Why is elevator music the same all over the galaxy?”

"Can't have an awkward elevator scene without it," Burnie replied with a chuckle.

Nollel stayed quiet as the lift seemed to take forever, and they arrived in one of the sub-basements. She never ventured off her floor, so this was completely new and unnerving as the lift stopped and the door opened into a stark white environment instead of some dark and dingy environment like she expected. “Did not expect it to be so clean,” she whispered aloud as Leiddem stepped out first.

"Yeeaaah, not exactly the norm for HVAC level," Burnie said, stepping out cautiously, and seeing no one around, pulled out a tricorder and began turning slowly, taking readings. After a moment, he put it aside and pointed. "That way. Traces of biomemitic gel," he whispered.

Jake nodded, this time taking the lead and motioning for Leiddem to bring up the rear; sandwiching the others between the two of them. Cautiously he led the advance along the strangely sterile corridors. Dead silence. There didn't appear to be a soul around -- no guards, no scientists. Nothing.

"It's way too quiet," he murmured, not wanting to make a noise himself.

Jinx scanned the area, too, and kept it up as they headed toward the reading of the bio-mimetic gel. She switched to life signs to see if she could pick up the captain. “Why would they bring him down here?” she whispered.

"I guess it would depend on what they are doing to him," Leiddem commented as they wandered along a corridor following the readings from the gel. It was such a strange compound for them to be using in the middle of nowhere. What could they be doing with it? He stopped dead as he heard footsteps coming towards them and indicated for them to get inside the nearest room.

Burnie darted into the room with the others, drawing a small Type I phaser from his pocket. It didn't have the sort of fire power he preferred, but it was easily concealable, and on wide beam stun it would take out anyone who checked the room, plus whoever was standing right behind them.

Making sure he was the last one in through the doorway, Jake made sure it closed silently behind them. There was a collective holding of breath as they glanced silently around at one another, waiting for the danger to pass. He was about to give them an all-clear signal when his attention was drawn by the apparatus in the room with them, large machines, barely humming with power, a pair of large vat-like capsules, surrounded on all sides by transparent plexiglass.

Inside both of them hung an unconscious humanoid figure, both of them identical. Both of them...Captain Reuben Gregnol.

"Frak..." Burnie cursed under his breath. He glanced at Jinx. "I don't suppose one of them reads as a skin-job android?"

"Frak?" Leiddem turned and put a hand over his mouth to stop the string of expletives that were coming out of his mouth. "Jea is going to blow her lid when she discovers all of this." The man looked at everyone amazed as he finally took one step forward to take a better look at the vats.

"Don't get too close," Jake murmured. "Is this what they were doing with the bio-mimetic gel? Someone talk to me."

Jinx scanned the vats. “Can’t be android, unless they’ve got someone smarter than Bruce Maddox and willing to flaunt the most stringent Federation law on synths,” Jinx said. “Looks like Jeassaho just hit the jackpot,” the tiny woman said.

"Some jackpot..." Burnie frowned. "One of them is an experimental clone produced with bio-mimetic gel, obviously using accelerated aging to get a physical duplicate rather than just a genetic one. This is the type of thing shady groups do when they want to replace people with one of their own agents, like the Dominion did with shape-shifters during the war, except with this kind of tech they'd have to make it happen by something like seeding some kind of mental programming into the clone." He arched a brow at Jinx. "Are sure there's no detectable difference?"

Leiddem frowned at the woman and shook his head. This was not a jackpot, and certainly not the time or place to think like that. One of them should not exist at all, and it raised all kinds of thoughts in the man's head. "Nothing that I can scan," Leiddem piped up with a medical scanner as he moved forward to get a better look. Just because Nollel had been said to not go forward did not mean she could not go to the window. She stopped dead as she looked out the window and turned ashen as she looked at what was there.

"Great. So how are we meant to know which one is the real Gregnol?" Jake wondered, looking to his science and technology specialists for an answer.

"Guys... Michael," Nollel said from the window as she tried to capture everyone's attention from the two tubes. Leiddem came over and opened his eyes wide as he saw below what Nollel had been trying to tell them, row upon row of the same tubes as what stood in the small laboratory.

Responding to Nollel's call, Burnie went to look, and sucked a breath through his teeth at what he saw. "We're going to have to go in there," he said, hating the idea even as he said it, but it had to be done. "We need to know if any or all of those are Gregnol clones. And if they're not, we should still take scans to send to the authorities once we're well away from this planet."

Jake looked at the two vats in the room with them. Then he looked out at the rest of it. All this tech, most of it highly illegal. And they were cloning the captain of a random cargo ship? Something didn't add-up. Not to mention his own brother's stake in all this. It didn't sit right with him at all. He grabbed Burnie by the shoulder, separating him from the rest of the group for a moment.

"Burnie...Michael." Jake used his first name, his tone serious. "I'm having a really bad feeling about this. When we find the captain -- the real one -- and get him out of here,I don't like the thought of leaving all this behind in one piece. Now I know you have a certain penchant for making things go boom, so how about it? Can you rig something to spoil their party here?"

A tight smile spread on Burnie's face, and he pulled a string of explosive wire out of a slim wallet. "I am way ahead of you on that."

Jake wasn't sure whether to be impressed or scared. Maybe both. "Burnie, when we get done with this I think we need to have a talk. For now, though, we need to find the real Gregnol. How long do you need?" He was very prepared for it to be a short period of time.

Burnie glanced around the lab and the tube farm below. "Not long. A charge set in the control module here will take these out, but I'll need to find a junction box in there to blow that lab."

"Get on it. The rest of us..." He turned to the others. "We've got to find a Reuben in a haystack."

Jinx shook her head. “I’m not sure we’re going to be able to tell the real captain with tricorders,” she said. “We might need state of the art genetic sequencers. Are there any Starfleet science vessels nearby?” She considered. “And how are they doing the neural remapping?” she mused, looking around at the equipment.

Leiddem just frowned at the scientist. That was not helpful in the slightest. They would have more luck with Fenris Rangers than Starfleet, unless the Cosmos was one of the ships close by. "We would have more luck with Fenris Rangers than Starfleet." He snorted and moved to look at the closest console and sat down.

"Guys look at this." He moved back from the console so everyone could look at the feed he had uploaded.

//Subject 5987// 4th April 2396

Order #1: Wake up
Order #2: Drink water in the cafeteria
Order #3: Eat food in the cafeteria
Order #4: Sleep in an assigned spot in the bunk room
Order #5: Mine for an undetermined amount of time in the assigned corridor
Order #6: Die
//Terminated//

//Subject 6004// 7th April 2396

Order #1: Wake up
Order #2: Drink water in the cafeteria
Order #3: Eat food in the cafeteria
Order #4: Mine for an undetermined amount of time in the assigned corridor
Order #5: Die

//Terminated//

//Subject 6029// 10th April 2396

Order #1: Wake up
Order #2: Mine for an undetermined amount of time in the assigned corridor
Order #3: Die

//Terminated//

//Subject 6244// 12TH April 2396

Order #1: Wake up
Order #2: Mine for an undetermined amount of time in the assigned corridor
Order #3: UNKNOWN UNKNOWN ERROR ERROR

//REBOOT//

Order #1: Wake up
Order #2: Mine for an undetermined amount of time in the assigned corridor
Order #3: Find crew of SS Mary Rose
//Subject active//

Burnie finished placing a coil of explosive in the controller and came over to have a look at the console. "Well, that's not at all disturbing," he remarked sarcastically. "That last is the day the captain went missing, so they sent one of these biomimetic golems out to find us. And that one appears to still be active." He frowned. "We better check the rest to be sure no one else was taken and replaced with a duplicate."

"Tell me that we can use this to identify the real captain," Jake said, looking at the others for a positive response.

"Let's get down there and look," Lieddem muttered, tightening his grip on his weapon as they opened the door that would lead them down. Within seconds of getting inside the cavernous room, the former marine was sweating. "Bullocks, I could not work in these conditions."

"Glad I am wearing something thin, that is for sure," Nollel piped up as she reached the bottom step and went to the nearest machine that held someone. "They are not all the same."

Burnie frowned, though he had expected that. "You said people sometimes disappeared and weren't at all the same when they returned, so others must have been used to make these programmable clones. The question is, are those people somewhere in here along with Gregnol?" He'd wired the controller, but he wouldn't feel right about torching the place if other real people were in here. For that matter, he was relieved the clones were automatons, because if they were actually sentient he'd have to advocate for freeing them all before blowing it all up and that...

...hmm... He considered the console he had just wired. The same sort of listing as above was on its screen. That actually might not be a bad idea. "Hey, maybe the way to find the originals is to activate them all." He held a hand up to stave off the inevitable objections. "Hear me out. We use this to give them commands: Wake up. Go upstairs and destroy the offices. Die. Then anyone who doesn't run out with the rest of them is an original, plus we've created a distraction so we can get us and them out."

"I'm struggling to think of a better idea." Jake looked at Burnie and Jinx. "If you can run that command through the system, I'll monitor for the captain. Then we can grab him and bail before this place goes up."

“Worth a shot,” Jinx said. She looked around. “That looks like it might be a central station.” She indicated a round console area in the middle of the room. She looked around and found an old crate, hauling it with her as she went to the central console and hopped up to stand on the box and study the controls. “Yes, this should do nicely,” the tiny redhead said as her small fingers tapped over the display screens and input pads.

Jake watched the diminuitive Kisongo work for a few seconds, then the machinery around them started to come to life. Within seconds, the vats bearing the two respective Reuben Gregnols started to flush and empty. Their occupants, clad in just enough to protect their modesty, twitched and rose to life as the vat hissed and opened, allowing them to robotically emerge in unison.

"Privet," the two men nodded at the group of intruders, before heading calmly on their way.

"That was weird," Jake remarked, breaking the silence. "Okay, according to this there's a monitoring lab just at the other end of the hallway that's still active. It's the only one left; that must be him." He motioned to Leiddem. "You and me grab the Captain. Burnie, set us a timer and let's make a move."

Burnie watched the larger tube farm - he wasn't about to blow up anyone who wasn't an automaton - but everyone who came out of the tubes also headed out toward the upper offices with an almost eerie sense of steady purpose. So, he set the timer and hurried after Jake, palming the phaser he'd brought. "All set. Make this quick - I gave us 10 minutes, but we still have to get up to the main level."

The only Gregnol who did not move lay in a tube that had not moved but had a lot more pipes and things coming out of it. "This is a stasis chamber. I have seen them at a technology conference but they never worked. He looks hurt but there is no way he was hurt two days ago." Leiddem said spotting the tub that mircously was without any liquid inside. It would making moving easier.

Jake looked over the various controls, not really understanding any of it. With a little shrug, he found a manual release and yanked it hard, unlocking the pod and heaving the lid open.

"Get the ladies out of here," Jake said to Burnie and Leiddem as he lifted the unconscious Captain onto his shoulder with a little grunt. "I'll be right behind you."

Urging the small group out of the lab, Jake carried Gregnol fireman-style over his broad shoulders hoping that he wasn't going to be causing any lasting damage. They didn't have time to fool around with the threat of a ticking timer hanging over them.

The journey back up the lift through the complex seemed to take an age, and although Burnie probably had the count in his head, Jake wasn't keeping up with it. He was pushing them out of the doors as soon as they opened. "As soon as we get clear, signal Jea for a beam-out," he barked ahead, hoping one of them would be thinking the same.

With a few seconds to spare, and the weight of the Captain starting to slow him, Jake suddenly felt the sensation of an active transporter beam and the welcome whine of the dematerialisation process. At the same time there was another more explosive vibration beneath their feet.

"Ten minutes was-" He was halfway through the sentence as they beamed out and he completed it on the Mary Rose's pad. "...Plenty?"

"Yeah," Burnie sighed, a little sad he'd missed seeing the effects of his handiwork. "Maybe even a few seconds longer than necessary."

Jake rolled his eyes a little. "Let's get the Captain to sickbay. I've had enough of this place for one trip."