Somewhere along the line, they’d picked up a rather proficient IT team.
Then there was the other side of the “underground world,” as some had taken to calling it.
The departments. With the main elevator bays acting as a central hub, half of the section was divided into the departments. The work areas.
Residential and commercial zones did not overlap.
Thumbing the biometric lock to get into the R&D lab, Felix waited for the door.
Mr. White had hired a team of people to work for him. All with the approval of HR and magically enforced Indentured contracts.
Every time he visited, which wasn’t as often as he’d have liked, but probably more than he needed to, there was something new.
Felicia’s team shared the workspace with him. Mundane engineers and supers working side by side to create the best tech for Legion.
The big security door moved aside, the three-inch-thick steel ominously silent.
Walking in, he found Mr. White and one of his team members fiddling with what looked for all the world like a soda can.
If soda cans glowed and had circuity that seemed to guide that glow.
Felix said nothing, as he didn’t want to interrupt their conversation, but instead took a seat and merely watched.
The team member took the can and inserted it into a slot at the bottom of a box-like contraption.
With a flick of a switch, the box started to glow and gently hum.
“Good, take it to Felicia.” Mr. White shooed the assistant off and turned to face Felix.
“Good afternoon.”
“Good afternoon, Mr. White.”
“You just witnessed the first time we had a successful energy cell power up something other than itself.”
“The soda can?”
“Exactly. That soda can could power everything in this building for a few hours.
“And with that successful test, we’ve now solved the problem we had with our energy weapons. There was no way to supply a sufficient amount of energy, to create reliable weapons.
“Sure, it’d fire once or twice by conventional means, but that was it.”
Felix had to admit that sounded like a pretty terrible problem. Why take a weapon that can fire twice, when you could take a firearm that could put hundreds of rounds downrange easily and still fire more.
“We should have a working prototype in a week. Felicia built a machine that creates those soda cans.
“Works off a similar principle to how Lily charges things, I guess.”
“Makes sense. And yeah, that sounds like Felicia. Anything she can think up, she can probably build. Provided she can think it up.”
Felix held out one hand towards Mr. White.
“How goes the progress with th—”
A deep rumbling brought Felix up short. He could even feel it on his body.
This particular lab was rather far below surface level, which meant whatever had just happened was huge.
Then the emergency lights started flashing, and a low buzzing could be heard.
“We’re under attack,” Mr. White said, looking up at one of the flashing lights.
“Take your position, then.” Felix moved over to the security door and thumbed it open.
He’d be needed in central control. Being able to repair anyone, or anything, from anywhere in the building, made him invaluable.
But he had to see what was going on.
Another deep rumble overtook him. It was louder this time.
Did they fucking nuke us?
Setting off at a run, Felix felt like he couldn’t get there quick enough.
Eight soldiers, as they couldn’t have been anything else in the gear they were wearing, in front of the vault door for central command and security saw him coming. They were armed in what looked as if a modern-day soldier had gone through a science fiction novel.
Each was armed with a machine gun that was mounted to an exo-frame that was issued to the elite forces in Legion.
The weapons were belt fed from a backpack that hung off the back of the exo-frame.
Their tactical gear had the feel of blast gear that didn’t seem to encumber them at all.
Their helmets were the stuff out of comic books. Much like the rest of their armor, it was dark, sleek, metallic. An eyepiece over one side of the dark black visor added to the strange look of it.
He’d seen these soldiers training with Andrea and Ioana. He knew they were superior in many ways. Quick, strong, determined, intelligent.
Those exo-frames weren’t a joke either, and could power them along as fast as an Olympic sprinter for as long as they had power. They could lift things far beyond their capacity as a normal human.
Those frames put them on a level with low-powered supers.
Each of the fifty exo-frames they possessed had been created by Felicia’s team by hand. They weren’t able to be mass produced yet, as the energy source required hadn’t been available.
That and it was inefficient as hell.
They ate up power. They were only good for three hours before needing to get recharged.
Until a few minutes ago, that is. Mr. White solved that problem.
The gigantic vault door began to unlock itself and hiss as Felix got closer.
By the time he was close enough to enter, it was already closing itself again.
Felix slipped inside as it clanged shut behind him, the massive locks engaging and closing them in.
Andrea Prime, Kit, and Miu were present in the room, as well as the command center crew.
“What the hell is going on?” Felix asked, moving to his “captain’s chair” in the room. It was center stage in the middle of the massive wall display of cameras, feeds, and information.
“They bombed the building,” Andrea said, coming up beside him. “Twice. No deaths, but a lot of wounded. Felicia’s machines are patching them up so they’ll live, but… you’ll need to spend points to get them back to full capacity.”
Felix grunted at that. “Of course. It’s part of my duty to them. Did we engage our Telemedics?”
Kit came up to stand on his left. “We did. They worked splendidly. We had a full triage and medical evacuation within twenty seconds of the blast. They’re the reason we have no casualties.”
“Perfect.”
The Telemedics had been a late-night thought of his own.
He had kept giving superpowers to those who already had them. He’d never stopped to think about giving powers to those who had none.
Putting out a call to those who, one, wanted to be on the medical staff, and two, wanted to receive a superpower to do that job, they’d gotten a large number of volunteers.
Each volunteer had been granted the power of teleportation for themselves and whoever they were touching. Then he’d given them a miscellaneous power, as he’d called it. They were all given the gift of a full education in medicine in the span of an hour.
As much of an education as you could get going through medical school, that is.
It was a strange superpower to give out, the knowledge of medicine and health.
Pretty much like a damn skill book out of a video game. A superpower granted by virtue of what was contained between the covers.
No one complained about suddenly being the equivalent of a medical doctor from it.
Finally, each was given a power cell from Lily and told to activate it when they were in danger. It would activate a shield for about thirty seconds that would keep them from harm.
They weren’t issued weapons, though, as their primary function was to get in and get out.
And thus the Telemedic team was born. A group of twenty men and women given superpowers specifically to operate in a single function.
They’d practiced extensively but had had no actual experience until today.
“What else do I need to know?” Felix asked. Several of the cameras at the entrance and the front lobby were down.
“They’ve taken up position and are sieging us. There’s been nothing on any police, fireman, or government frequencies. Lily is pretty sure a blackout has been purchased, as she can’t even reach her contacts.” Kit closed up her tablet and tucked it under her arm.