Chapter 16: Hazardous Projects

Gloom overshadowed the Hazardous Projects Building. Silver began to coat the western horizon, signaling that the day was almost done.
Down at the fence, an all-terrain transport slotted itself into the checkpoint. Professor Forban poked his head out of the driver's window.
"Hello." he said as he handed his security card to the guard. The guard nodded acknowledgement and inserted the card into his handheld machine.
"Professor Forban." The guard said, a little surprised. "It says here that you've resigned?"
"Yes, unfortunately that is true." Forban said. "I'm just here to pick up a few of my things."
"Right." The guard said hesitantly. "We'll have to check your cargo going in and out." He gestured for one of his fellow officers to come over and together they pulled back the tarp curtains over the back end of the vehicle. Their flashlights revealed nothing but the bare walls of the cargo bay.
"You're good to go in." Said the first guard, and the vehicle's engine growled to life as Forban took it to the building's entrance.
Forban parked parallel to the building's main door, and as soon as the engine was off, he loudly whispered "Paradox? you can come out now."
Paradox rolled out from under the vehicle where he had been hiding. He made sure that the vehicle was between him and the eyes of the guards before standing up.
"Quantum Collapse should be in the central lab." Forban said. "You might get there quicker if you cut through storage. That is, if it's not occupied."
"Thanks." Paradox said.
"Right then. Get inside so I can move this vehicle to the depot. The guards might be suspicious that I haven't already. Remember, The quicker you go, the less likely someone will see you on the cameras."
"Right." Paradox said. He turned to go and jumped a little when the pneumatic doors opened before him, but proceeded inside. As the doors closed behind him, Paradox heard the rumble of Forban's engine disappear.
Paradox figured his best bet to not be seen was to do this as quickly as possible. He tried to remember the directions Forban had given him; a right, two lefts, go through lab four if it was open, if not, work around it past labs three and two. Paradox took off at full sprint down the halls. Right, left...
Paradox skidded to a halt as he rounded a corner, nearly running into a scientist who was busily tapping at a datapad. The scientist looked up and scanned Paradox briefly.
"Ah! Courier! I need this delivered to lab five." the scientist said as he produced a data chip from his pockets.
Paradox took the card gingerly and said "Uh... yes! sir!" He ran past the scientist, hoping that this direction could be construed as leading to lab five.
Paradox resumed his course toward lab one until he arrived at the door to storage. It was a gymnasium-like space filled with scattered piles of large metal crates. On the far side of the room was another doorway. Paradox didn't see anyone else, so he took off across the room, his footseps being the only sound to break the silence. Or they were until about halfway across when a voice shouted, "Hey you!"
Paradox nearly tripped as he stopped to face his accuser. He was a mouse with black-speckled fur, a guard by the looks of his bulky chrome armor that seemed way too heavy for a person to move in. When he walked towards Paradox, however, he did so with ease, accompanied by the sound of whirring motors within the chrome casing.
"Who gave you access to this area?" asked the guard gruffly.
"I- uh- I was just-" Paradox fumbled for a lie he could tell.
"This area is for authorized personnel only. Where's your ID badge?"
Paradox wasn't sure what to say. He was rooted to the ground in a somewhat defensive posture, which probably didn't help. Paradox managed to stammer out; "I- I'm a courier. I need to deliver a data chip to... to lab one."
"That explains something at least. I'm still gonna need to see your ID badge." The guard said as he strode forward. Paradox took a step backward before he could stop himself. That armor was intimidating, to say the least.
"Well, I-" Paradox began, but he was cut off by blaring klaxons and red pulsating lights from seemingly everywhere at once.
A voice came over the intercom. It was Kira's. "We have an intruder on base. I repeat, we have an intruder on base. All security forces on alert."
As soon as the message ended, The guard narrowed his gaze at Paradox and lunged to grapple him in his iron grip. Paradox backed out of his reach and dove between some crates to keep himself that way. As Paradox ran through a corridor of storage containers, he heard the metallic feet stomping the floor behind him and the guard's voice saying into his comm, "I have eyes on the intruder in storage two. I repeat, storage two."
Paradox ducked around a corner just before the guard slammed into the crates, pushing off of them to boost himself quickly to top speed again. Paradox dodged and weaved through the boxes, never sure where he was going except away from the thing that was chasing him. After a few turns, Paradox found himself staring at a wall. it was a dead end. The guard skidded around the corner and took a wide stance to block Paradox from trying to slip around him.
"I have you now." The guard said.
"Sorry." Paradox said.
The guard looked confused for a split-second before Paradox blasted him backwards with his powers, sending him into a pile of crates that toppled with the force of the blow. Paradox then immediately ran back where he had come, leaving the guard in the wreckage. It wasn't long, though, before the sounds of pursuit resumed with renewed fervor.
"Subject should be considered armed and dangerous!" the guard shouted into his comm. Then to Paradox he said, "I don't know how you did that, but I'm taking you down!"
Paradox ran faster, given wings by the threat of violence. He eventually got back to the central area and caught sight of the door. Halfway there, though, he heard a worrying scrape of metal and turned his head back to look. The guard was lifting a crate half the size of Paradox. Then, he hurled it. Paradox ducked, but the crate sailed past him to the side of the door, where it smashed through a pane of glass that covered a big, red button labeled lockdown. Almost immediately, Thick blast doors slammed down over the entrances, trapping Paradox inside.
"Now, let's see how tough you are." The guard said, a form-fitting metal helmet and visor clamping shut over his face. He unsheathed a Sword-like object and pressed a switch along the handle, allowing electric energy to arc down the blade. Paradox backed up in a defensive position, trying to find another exit. Before he could look much, however, the guard took a swing at him, forcing Paradox to duck backwards beneath the blow. While Paradox was off-balance, the guard swept his legs with a metallic foot, causing Paradox to fall prone and allowing the guard a potential downward finishing blow. Paradox rolled to the left, dodging the downstroke and granting him the time he needed to notice a small vent hatch in the ceiling. Paradox dodged another blow and spun to his feet, immediately interposing a crate between himself and his attacker with his powers. Paradox then made a powered jump up towards the vent, landing on top of a wall of crates a few-dozen meters underneath the grate. Paradox puzzled for half a second on how to get up safely, but his attacker made a powerful leap of his own, landing a few meters away and interrupting the thought process. There wasn't much room to maneuver on top of the wall, so Paradox backed away while the guard took a few quick swings at him with his sword. Paradox very quickly ran out of room to walk, stopping himself just before stepping off the edge. The next swing the guard took would force Paradox in another direction, so Pardox elected to go under his attacker's guard and came up on the other side. Before his attacker was able to reorient himself, Paradox gave him a push that sent him tumbling over the edge.
Paradox then returned his attention to the vent and boosted himself up to a nearby ceiling beam. Paradox took a few seconds to concentrate on pulling the bolts out with his powers before he heard a crackle and a whoosh behind him, warning him to dodge out of the way. The guard's electric sword spun past Paradox's nose as he moved, afterward neatly chopping the cover in half and embedding itself in the vent's walls. That'll do. Paradox thought as he pulled himself up through the gaping hole.
Paradox heard the guard shouting to his comms as he wormed his way further into the ductwork, but the noise gradually faded into nothingness. Paradox had no idea where he was going; Forban's directions had been entirely for the first floor, and certainly not for working through the ventilation system; but he tried to keep his sense of direction and hoped he could just figure it out once he got out of the cramped space he was in. After passing a few exits that would have led him into guard-infested hallways, Paradox found a four-way intersection and stopped to think. Maybe he'd be able to find Quantum Collapse with his powers? Paradox closed his eyes and began searching. He wormed his thoughts into every area of the facility he could find. He located a few psionic switches and a few weak psionic presences, probably created by stimulation devices, and then he felt Quantum Collapse; a huge disturbance that was somewhere forward and to his right. Then Paradox felt Quantum Collapse feel him back.
Paradox opened his eyes in surprise, but now that he knew where Quantum Collapse was, he felt his way forward, looking for an exit. Soon afterward, Paradox found an exit that would take him onto the second floor. Paradox began working on unscrewing the bolts that held the cover in place, he heard a muffled explosion, followed by a cacophany of muffled metallic thuds and a new alarm. Kira's voice came over the intercom again, this time more fearful and interrupted occasionally by white noise.
"We have a containment breach in lab-" White noise. "I repea-" more white noise. "-Lab one. Send immediate-" Then Kira's voice and the white noise both fell silent, leaving the soundscape to the new blaring sirens and, a bit later, the sounds of panicked scientists evacuating the area. Paradox's heart dropped into his stomach and he decided he didn't have time for the stealthy approach. He blasted the vent open and emerged into the chaos.
Luckily, In their rush to get away from danger, nobody noticed the vent clatter across the floor. The Scientists were all running past Paradox and away where he'd felt Quantum Collapse, so he thought is was a good bet that against the flow was where he needed to go. Paradox soon arrived into a hall that had had one of it's walls blown open by an explosion of some sort. Through the hole, Paradox could see the tube he had retrieved from the dark village shattered into pieces on the floor far below, as well as a collection of burning, broken machinery. In the far wall of the room was a gaping hole the size of a house and a trail of destruction leading deeper into the building.
Paradox ran along the hallways around the room, ending up on the far side. He was trying to figure out his next move when he heard a grunt from inside a nearby room. Inside was a sleek white form that was struggling under the weight of a metallic beam.
Paradox had found Kira.