With his guests holding him at gunpoint, Teller led the squad back through the doors and down a flight of steps to the deserted tram station.
“So, you guys really think there’s xenotech down here?” Teller asked congenially.
“You work here,” Bale pointed out, “you tell us.”
“Hey, I’m just a junior technician,” Teller replied defensively, “Masterminds know what the scientists get up to in their labs all day. I just keep the machinery running.”
A mag-tram was already waiting, and Teller waved everybody aboard. Once the doors had shut, he keyed in their destination.
“The tram goes to central operations.” Teller explained as the tram began to trundle forward, “But to be honest, you guys are the most interesting thing that’s happened here.”
“The intel brief said that J.E. Co. first lost contact with this place several days ago.” Doran said over the squad comm., “Now this guy’s telling us nothing strange happened except for us showing up? Not even a banal communications loss?”
“We’ll get our answers once we’re at central operations.” Gabriel replied.
“The brief also said that J.E. Co. sent in its own in-house security team to investigate this place,” Cato added his own doubts, “think he forgot to mention that as well?”
“Maybe,” Gabriel replied sceptically, “None of this adds up.”
“Permission to put a bullet in his head just to be safe, Colonel?” Viker half-joked.
“Denied.” Gabriel replied seriously, then added, “For now.”
The facility’s tram glided along at a steady pace, moving slowly enough to see the station names. The squad stood in patient silence whilst keeping a watchful eye on Marcus Teller, who seemed unusually calm for a man effectively being held hostage.
“How long have you worked here?” Bale asked Teller through his helmet speakers.
“About six months.” Teller replied amicably, “They don’t let you go home that often, long term rotations and all. But still, this place is sac…such a great place to live and work, I mean.” Teller apparently corrected himself. “So much to do, so much to learn…”
“What the frick is this guy talking about?” Viker wondered over the comm.
“Here we are.” Teller announced, as the tram glided into the station. The holographic sign above the platform read: ‘Hydroponics’.
Ogilvy grabbed Teller by the collar and threw the man to the ground.
“Do you think we’re fucking stupid?” Ogilvy yelled at the man, aiming his weapon at Teller’s head, “You said we were going to central operations!”
“We are going to central operations,” Teller replied, displaying his bare palms to the squad, “you just have to pass through the hydroponics bay to get there.”
“He’s telling the truth,” Doran informed the squad as he consulted a holographic map.
“Look,” Teller said as he picked himself up off the ground, “you guys asked me to take you to central operations, that’s what I’m doing.”
“It might have helped if you’d told us the route beforehand.” Gabriel said suspiciously.
“It’s up the stairs, straight through the hydroponics labs, and on to central operations.” Teller clarified, “once you’re there, you can do whatever you want.”
The tram doors opened and everyone disembarked, following Teller through the deserted station, then through another atrium before finally arriving at the hydroponics labs.
The squad found themselves at the top of a huge, multi-storey complex covered with greenery and filled with steam, like an indoor tropical rainforest without the trees. The walls were lined with rack after rack of genetically-engineered fruit and vegetables, tended to by aerial drones and robotic arms which took routine readings, and periodically relocated tanks to the ground floor for processing into food.
“The hydroponics labs are entirely automated,” Teller explained, leading the squad across the walkway towards a reinforced door at the opposite end, “each section can produce enough food to feed the entire facility for a decade.”
“So no one needs to come down and monitor the labs at all?”
“Not at all,” Teller replied, stopping in front of the door and turning to face the squad, “except when catastrophe strikes!”
Teller shouted those last two words at the top of his lungs. Without warning, the lights cut out and all the machinery stopped dead.
* * *
After the impromptu staff meeting had concluded, everyone filed out of the breakroom in a visibly sombre mood, dispersing back to their offices and workshops. Aster followed them, heading quietly back to her office, and locking the door behind her.
Then she sat down at her desk and held her head in her hands.
Everything was a mess. No one wanted to think about the fate of their Loki colleagues or what they had been working on. It was an open secret that many of J.E. Co.’s breakthroughs had come out of the Loki facility, and it didn’t take a huge leap of the imagination to guess what they might have been based on. The less they knew, the safer their own necks were.
Gabriel was probably over there, too, risking his own life to investigate what had happened. Every time he deployed on some new mission he was gone for weeks or months at a time; she never knew where he was, or when – or if – he would return. But this time she was more or less directly involved. If he was only going to be gone for a few days, that meant he was staying in the Asgard star system. That couldn’t be a coincidence.
Furthermore, as selfish as it seemed to even raise the subject, career prospects were also in the backs of everyone’s minds. Once word got out about the scandal, clients and investors would flee like rats and new contracts would dry up, potentially forcing the firm to file for bankruptcy. J.E. Co. did offer decent severance pay, but the stigma of having worked for a company rumoured to have dabbled in xenotech would make it difficult to get hired again.
It had been over a decade since she’d left the frontier, leaving behind the prospect of a mediocre future as a mechanic’s housewife with two children. Instead, she had an actual career…with four children and a taciturn supersoldier for a husband. Even so, it was a good life, and she wasn’t about to let it fall apart. It just wasn’t clear what she could do about it.
The buzzer sounded, bringing Aster’s gloomy train of thought to a sudden halt. Felix Kessler’s name was illuminated on the door’s holographic display.
What did he want now of all times?
Aster hastily composed herself before buzzing him in. Felix entered the room, looking distracted and despondent. Without saying a word, he walked straight over to the lounge in Aster’s office and slumped down on the couch.
Wondering why he had turned up, Aster got up and joined him on the couch.
Most days, Felix looked like a middle class teenager dressed like a scientist. He was from the Clouds originally, and he retained a keen sense of fashion with his carefully styled hair, dyed black and gold, and a silver stud in one ear. It was hard to believe that he had advanced degrees in materials science.
Now, however, he looked more like a sleep-deprived corpse. His steel grey eyes looked heavy and his features were sullen, weighed down by the events of this morning. Even his ear-stud looked duller under the light.
“We did all the diagnostics this morning, before you got here.” Felix reported blandly.
“Good to know.” Aster replied, equally blandly.
“We found 0.2367% corrosion on the primary lens of one of the initialiser lasers,” Felix reported, “repairing the lens should be complete by the end of the day.”