Specter, Chapter 10: Live Free and Thwart Hard! Report

Things had settled down where we first entered Oscorp’s undersea base, AIM invaders and all. But that wasn’t even half the work we had left to do.

I kept watch at the door with Medkit while Feral, Dr. Adel and Dr. Blake checked the AIM and Society of Rao terrorists. From AIM to Oscorp to Rao, they were some banged up, but fine overall. Some rest, while arrested, would go a long way for them.

Then there was Dr. Zarn-Del.

Even stunned by an Oscorp Neural-corder, then an AIM Data Disk, and getting trapped by an Oscorp Catch-Field, she just wouldn’t quit. Also, she was ready for us, or at least for someone to get in her way.

Using a miniature Tri-comm on her gauntlet, she tapped into the chem lab’s system and vented her chemical creation out of the room. That earned her another blast from Feral using a Neural-coder, which put Dr. Zarn-Del on the floor. Dr. Adel used the device again on the mad scientist. This time, Dr. Zarn-Del was out cold.

But that didn’t stop what shut down what she started.

The green chemical, that mind control mist, was still draining out to… somewhere. Feral sent Dr. Blake to track the pipes and find out where it was going.

Meanwhile, Amythyst had called for help with that stargate he found. Medkit and I headed north to back him up. Medkit ran for the console to help Amythyst shut down the dimensional gate. I moved to one side to keep watch in case the Oscorp thugs came charging in to stop us.

I wasn’t sure who figured it out, but between Medkit and Amythyst; they found the off-switch. But the gate didn’t just ‘turn off’. It needed time to power down. Past the open gate, a gigantic creature stomped toward us, followed by an Oscorp Protector! The gate wasn’t shutting down fast enough for our liking.

So Medkit stalled. He used a fast alphabet soup of medical terms to back up a story about an escaped “contaminant”. Something made of “powdered green rock”. What was it? It didn’t matter. Oscorp took it seriously and backed off. Unfortunately, the Protector called in medical backup.

We got lucky. The gate shut down right at that moment.

Back in the chem lab, I wasn’t sure what exactly happened, but Dr. Blake found where the pipes went. They led to an automated drone sub to carry off the mind control mist. But Dr. Blake wasn’t done. He wasted no time of getting into the airlock then swimming out to the sub! It turned out Dr. Blake was… breathing underwater… without an oxygen tank?

Feral and Dr Adel were trying to cobble together underwater gear. It sounded like they didn’t know Dr. Blake could breathe underwater? I wasn’t sure what the panic was about and tried to listen in, but events moved too fast in the stargate room.

Amythyst got into the Oscorp database and dug out two important bits of data. First was the creature. That was, before the transformation, the Project Protector lead researcher, Dr. Stephen Baptiste! Second, Oscorp tracks their Protector creations. Sensibly, he pulled that up on the console and saw one was almost to our position. We had just enough time to throw together a plan.

Amythyst and I picked the best out of the way spots in a round room to hide. Medkit swiped an Oscorp lab coat and name tag to masquerade as an Oscorp field tech. The ploy worked.

The Protector flew into the room, got another round of the “green powder rock” contaminant. Fortunately, the con still worked. Unfortunately for Medkit, it worked too well! The instant Amythyst and I attacked, the Protector grabbed Medkit, thinking he was an Oscorp Tech, and headed out of the room! The fight was on from there.

Back in the chemical lab, I could hear bits and pieces of what had happened. Dr Blake made it to the sub, wrecked its guidance and propulsion. That sent it to the ocean floor and the mind control mist out into the water, which supposedly ruined it. I learned later he used a device to scan the mist before destroying it. An analyzer that provided a potential antidote to Dr Zarn-Del’s nightmarish creation.

While Dr. Blake returned from the drone sub, Dr. Adel and Feral headed up to see how much help we needed. Which was a good bit. Dr. Adel tossed in a stunned Society of Rao trooper as a distraction.

That worked to rattle the Protector we had to deal with long enough so Dr. Adel could rush to the stargate console. She tapped into the sea base database until she found what we were after all along: the missing kidnap victims. She headed that way.

Later, I found out that, while posing as an Oscorp tech, she conned her way into the ‘Meta Study’ chamber past two technicians and one Society of Rao enforcer. A quick, smooth con later, and she had the answer why Oscorp wanted the mutates from New York.

Oscorp, with some advisement from the Society of Rao, was grafting genetic samples into their vat grown Protector androids! This was the source of the Protector’s meta powers. Dr Adel would have tried to free the captives but a Society of Rao trooper and an Oscorp Protector is a tall order take on alone. So she carefully backed out to get help from the rest of us.

Meanwhile, I motioned to Feral that more Oscorp trouble was headed our direction from the northern-most hallway. She nodded, then raced out of the room. She was going to ambush them. That was obvious. Maybe even give MedKit a chance to get himself free, I think. There were only so much hand signals can convey.

Next time I saw Feral, she erupted into that hallway, catching the mutated Dr. Baptiste and the Oscorp staff. She slammed the Protector to the floor, but he got free then flew to assist the first Protector we were fighting. That left Feral with Baptiste.

Now, Baptiste? He was a different story. Right after Feral turned away from the Protector, Baptiste shape-shifted into a duplicate of Feral!

Out of nowhere, though we should have expected it, AIM showed up again. Cybercommados burst in through the airlock at the far end of the sea base, intent on capturing Dr. Baptiste.

As if we didn’t have enough to do…