With cat eyes, Jessica watched as they attached explosives to every support beam. The LEDs blinked from green to red.
Beelz and her men repeated the action on the next floor, which housed a grandiose lounge in front of a glossy white conference room. Every corner was home to an animated plant: a swirling stem whose sleeping petals housed blue bioluminescence; a cactus-like curiosity came with razor-sharp, pink leaves; a white vine stem sprouted dancing dandelions; fungi with glowing green caps that extended over one another like a lava lamp. They were the kinds of off-world wonders Jessica wished would decorate her room, but she had to abandon curiosity long enough to note the gigantic pillars around the conference table – They almost blended into their surroundings yet seemed oddly redundant.
Without a wasted beat, Beelz's crew set more explosives and returned to the stairs en route to floor 85. During their upward trudge, Monarch's anxious and heavy breath returned.
"Sub Terra, listen to me! Our Azarean friends have a new gunship. Don't expect this operation to last much longer!"
Sure enough, the view from up high gave an overlook of Monarch's forewarning. Jessica planted goggles on the horizon, utilizing night vision to see a massive craft flying far beyond the limits of the cracked window. Bigger than the rest, its large wingspan carried the promise of catastrophe.
Thus, despite every fascination, she couldn't afford to study Goliath's outer mysteries. One glance teased a myriad of secrets: glass around refrigerated canisters, vials with the image of a T-Rex; just the tip of an iceberg since there was also a robotic arm stuffed in its own cylinder, then a transparent orb holding sentient black goo. From green-glowing meteorite rock to an entire showroom for an antiquated car. Secrets. None of it made sense, and the strange pillars from the last floor erected up to this floor and into the ceiling. Level 86 presented something else entirely.
86 immersed one in its likeness to an alien realm. Dimly lit by slithering trails of neon along black walls, it had an antechamber with magnificent doors leading left and right. Cautiously, Beelz approached the right before it slid open in four directions. The next room was no different.
Jessica finally understood the purpose of the redundant pillars. Up here, they had shed their white shells in lieu of black spires spangled with a mysterious, luminous energy that flowered into the ceiling. Whatever circuits powered these alien generators powered the current room and whatever else waited above. Still, something stranger landed in front of her.
Curiosity lived in the strange containers littering 86's four rooms. Curiosity resided in their size. Capsules were scattered across the floor, each with a cable from a wired network that circulated and linked back to the room's epicenter. Valerie and Shannon gaped at the sight, so Jessica knew she wasn't the only one unsettled. Even Beelz seemed docile, standing in the midst of the charcoal caskets. Her green eyes, their temporary absence, and silence betrayed rumination.
Done contemplating, Beelz wandered further inside. Part of Jessica even hoped she would leave because, when no one was looking, she logged into the central terminal. The next process required a bit of guesswork, but she had developed an affinity for language early in life: human, computer, and otherwise.
"There are humans in these," Valerie scoffed.
"I know," said Jessica.
"I-knew-it-I-knew-it-I-fucken-knew-it."
Shannon, rubbing her arms together, crept closer to one of the capsules. "Sick... Who could these people be? Why would Goliath keep them here?"
"Experiments? Wait. No—no, the message. That list that Amon pulled from the chip! Whatever the bullshit reason, they can't be left like this."
Beelz unexpectedly doubled back. "There's nothing to be done—" she said, rounding the corner, then stopped and stared grievously at Lynx. "What are you doing?"
Jessica returned a glare. Abruptly, the pods simultaneously cranked their tops and propped open.
"We're being overrun!" Monarch cried.
Beelz met Jessica with canines and a death stare. "You weren't supposed to do that."
"I did it," she replied then tapped her earbud. "Monarch! We're done. Order everyone out and extract us."
"Bullshit!" Beelz pressed her comm. "Monarch?"
No response.
"Are you calling off the whole mission?" asked Valerie.
"I'm getting us out," said Jessica.
Shoulders flexed, darting eyes and forming a fist, Beelz seethed onward. "You don't get to make that call! You're welcome to be a waste of space elsewhere, but Dissent is ending this today."
"These people may be the answer to everything, Beelz! Goliath, the regime, Spearhead, Asgard, Malvis—we can expose all of it. That's obvious, even if we're floors shy of the top. If there's even a one-percent chance of saving these people, if there's even a one-percent chance of their helping, it's worth getting everybody out alive while we can."
"Not all of us will fit in the ships, Lynx."
"I didn't think we would."
With a grunt, Beelz's grip loosened. She rubbed her forehead with the next order. "Help them out of the pods." Her squad followed the order without question. They took after Shannon and Valerie, who were already uplifting strangers from their caskets.
Jessica's friends never lacked initiative, even in her silence, which was a double-edged sword she had to face down. But as the crew of comatose strangers rose to consciousness, she goggled at a familiar face.
David?
"David?" exclaimed Beelz.
David Mourner was feebly lying in the hands of an operative when Beelz jumped to his side, holstering her sidearm. Disbelief colored Jessica's pale face as she crept closer to the sorry sight.
"This is what happened to you..." Beelz murmured, lifting the rest of him outside the capsule. Quivering, David's eyelids slowly opened. Brown irises on a pale face besmirched by utter surprise or shock. Jessica could only imagine the side-effects of hibernation in one of those things. Lumps in her throat, she scrounged the energy to speak.
"You know him?"
"He's one of our own," said Beelz. "He deserved better than this."
"He was the informant..."
Those were like the last piece of a puzzle. She panned across the room as more docile humans came to. Theirs were faces she had never seen before, but she pondered the stories they could tell, the secrets they could spell. That's before Beelz's watch blinked red.
Beelz noticed it, too.
"GET DOWN!"
Fire incinerated. Goliath headquarters had a new gaping hole, outside of which hovered an Asgard troop carrier. Beneath turbine screech, armed to the teeth, Azareans jumped into the tower. Beelz tossed her echolocation grenade, and lasers began flying in all directions. The strong winds were felt but unheard, debris reigned, and the floor fell to the mist of endless gunfire.
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