Mission: Smart mouth, short lifespan

Leon took a deep breath and zipped his jacket higher as the wind cut across the ice. It was blinding, so he had to put on sunglasses to protect his eyes, and even though he knew worse places, he had to protect himself against the cold; even a trained person rarely made it through the ice without equipment. His radio crackled softly, and then he heard a female voice that he recognized but didn’t particularly care for.

“Kennedy… I hope you remembered to pack long underwear.”

A quiet sigh escaped him; it was actually a waste of time to respond, but he might have to rely on this person if necessary.

“Damn, I forgot that. But since everyone says this mission is a piece of cake, I’m sure I’ll have plenty of time to knit something on the side.”

Another faint crackle, then something like a laugh could be heard; the connection wasn’t particularly good, but to be honest, that suited Leon just fine.

“You’ll have to find a place to camp for the night, Kennedy. The weather’s turning; we can’t send you a helicopter or a ship.”

He set off, using a navigation device to head toward his destination. Fortunately, it wasn’t too far away, because his lips were already turning slightly blue, but he was confident.

“Roger that, very welcome news.. I was starting to think I’d get bored. Over and out.”

Leon let his gaze wander over the frozen landscape as he slowly sank deeper and deeper into the deep snow until he finally fixed his eyes on the dark concrete structure ahead of him. The entrance to the underground laboratory jutted out of the ice, a small round dome, naturally also covered in snow, half-buried and marked by frost, but accessible. The ice was not only an enemy but also a friend on this mission; the snow cover showed no other footprints except his own, so he was certain he was alone.. at least there were no signs of human activity anywhere in sight. The mission itself had been quickly explained. 

During a raid on a black-market bioweapons ring, old data records had surfaced, fragmentary clues pointing to a long abandoned laboratory somewhere beneath the Greenland ice sheet. Apparently, someone on the market had been specifically searching for this data. The DSO now wanted to know why. Leon was to enter the facility, locate the old servers, and back up everything that was still readable; if any samples were still stored down there, he was to simply document their existence. A recovery team would come later for everything else. A quick data collection, in and out. At least that was the plan, and it was already falling apart in the first few minutes, because it was clear he would have to spend the night in this facility, he hadn’t received any information about a camp that had once been set up by some military freaks.

From the records about this lab, he had gathered that there was no danger there, no mutations, no infected people. That was reassuring, but Leon would never rely on something like that. With his hands covered in thick gloves, he shoveled some snow off the steel entrance door; he had to use a small portable burner to clear the ice from the door, after which he was able to open it without any trouble. That was too easy… way too easy! A long, dark corridor that looked quite sterile and unused led into the interior of the facility. Endless staircases that led deeper and deeper into the ice, which felt like they would never end, but Leon took his time, being careful not to make too much noise as his heavy boots struck the metal, and reached the lowest level after about 15 minutes. It was dark, quiet... almost uncomfortably quiet; blue emergency lights flickered sporadically. The facility was apparently being kept more or less alive by solar power, but Leon was glad for the flashlight he carried in one hand, which gave him excellent visibility. He walked past several rooms; the doors were all wide open, which gave him pause.

“Open doors in an abandoned lab… that doesn’t feel suspicious at all.”

He muttered to himself and used one of the small rooms where lab supplies were apparently stored to take off his heavy jacket, select the weapons he wanted to bring, and temporarily stash the rest there. Here, too, Leon had developed a certain routine, based on experience. Even if a mission wasn’t particularly difficult, he always armed himself with the same tools. The pistol remained his primary weapon, supplemented by a shotgun, whose raw stopping power had often made the difference in tight corridors. For longer ranges or situations where he needed to react a bit faster, he also took a compact assault rifle. In addition to the weapons, he tucked a few other items into his gear: a combat knife, several flash-bang grenades in case something got too close, and a fragmentation grenade in case something significantly larger appeared. He slung the rifles over his shoulder; everything else fit into the pouches he wore strapped to his body like armor.

He glanced once more at the map he’d been given; it showed every nook and cranny of the lab, and the target was marked with a red circle. Nodding, he grabbed a small solar panel with which he could revive any laptops or computers, and then he finally set off on his reconnaissance mission.

The complex was old; you could tell by the displays, the outdated terminals, and the heavy mechanical doors, but despite that, nothing looked ransacked. The rooms he passed through were tidy. Tables were still where they belonged, instruments lay neatly spread out on work surfaces, glass containers stood on shelves, labeled boxes were stacked, and even the cables still ran neatly along the walls. Nothing had been broken into or scattered. If someone had really been searching for data or samples down here, it would look different. Leon had seen enough places like this to know what a ransacked facility looked like. Even if, as assumed, the military had already conducted an inspection, there would be utter chaos here. What Leon also noticed was that he didn’t need to use his oxygen mask, these labs were still being supplied with oxygen, even though they seemed sealed off like a bunker, and he didn’t like any of it.. not one bit.

He grew even more skeptical when the rooms no longer matched the map, revealing another area that was neither mentioned nor marked on it, yet was freely accessible... like everything else in this damn hole.

“I really should stop being surprised by these kinds of surprises.”

He muttered sarcastically to himself and adapted to the situation at hand by moving even more quietly, gathering ammunition that was also freely accessible and stowing it away in the remaining pockets of his small bags. In a case, he found two gas grenades, and those actually made sense… they weren’t lethal to humans, but they could temporarily paralyze biological organisms.

“Unstable test subjects? Has something actually been alive down here? Or can I just claim that I finally have the perfectly dangerous balls in my pants to pull this off?”

Sighing, he moved on, leaving his original goal behind, because first he wanted to get a sense of the rest of the surroundings. Eventually, he reached a room where countless vials containing undefined liquids were displayed, various codes were marked on them, and he suspected that data could be retrieved from them that was stored in some system. To be on the safe side, he took photos of them with his cell phone; perhaps he’d find a suitable computer that could provide him with some answers.

“How good that the DSO taught me to hack… at least with this fundamental knowledge, I could now program a coffee machine…”

He continued searching, memorizing every damn corridor, every step, and every path in exact detail. Then suddenly a faint sound, as if a glass had shattered somewhere. Leon paused, listened, and could roughly pinpoint where the sound was coming from.

“I should check that out…”

And that’s exactly what he did, moving even more quietly and with his senses on high alert. After a few minutes, he reached a server room; the system was strangely active, the lights weren’t flickering, and the hum of the servers revealed they were running at full capacity. Then he saw a dark silhouette… a petite figure, and in a flash, he drew his weapon.

“This is the moment when you explain to me why you’re standing in my server room. You have exactly one chance to tell me who you are.. or, for all I care, what you are...”

Adrenaline surged through his body.. it seemed this mission was turning into an exciting adventure after all.

@Yelena Belova | Tsarina.