Not for the first time, I tried to move silently in my armour. And not for the first time, I failed. I had upgraded my boots with a low-tech solution, thick rubber-pads strapped to the soles of my boots and they helped muffling the sound. But compared to the easy and silent movement displayed by Anath, I felt like a cow, ambling out to pasture.

We got to the maintenance door and I used my access to their system to loop the camera for a short timeframe. It wasn’t anything sophisticated but it was enough to fool a casual observer. With the camera looped, I stepped up and entered the code-numbers into their security system and the door clicked open.

I put a timer and waypoints onto Anath’s visor, letting her know when to move where while I waited for the right moment. Avoiding the cameras and the likely positions of the guards was possible but it required a specific movement pattern which Galatea had discovered.

After a short countdown, Anath and I surged forward, exploiting the first blindspot to wait for the next window. We scurried through the facility, keeping out of sight of the cameras and managed to avoid the guards at the same time, at least we did so until we entered the corridor leading into the secured parts. Just as we rounded the corner into said corridor, I ran into one of the roaming guards. Literally.

I was not sure who was more surprised but I think he was. Before he managed to overcome his surprise and raise the alarm, I had managed to get a hand on him and trigger the taser built into the palms. The guard went down without a fuss and I gently set him down, leaning against the wall.

A quick x-ray scan showed me where the bolts holding the door were located and short plasma-streams easily dealt with the bolts. However, when the plasma hit the door, a loud, obnoxious siren started blaring an alarm into the night and red lights started to flash.

Kicking open the door, we hurried deeper into the facility, looking for the supply-room next to the server-room. The server-room had a vault-style security door, strong enough to give me pause for a few minutes but the blueprints showed a supply-room right next to it, only secured by a standard door and separated from the server-room by a flimsy brick-wall.

With the blueprints and Galatea, finding the right door was childsplay and kicking it open was no challenge as well. Breaking through the wall took a little effort but after I made sure that on the other side was nothing of importance, a full-powered punch made short work of the wall separating me from my goal.

The first crimp was introduced when Galatea told me that there was a jammer somewhere close by but not in the room itself so I was unable to use a transceiver to link her into their system, I’d have to use a cable-connection from my armour, effectively tethering me to the server while Galatea worked.

I plugged her in and settled for a short wait while scanning the feed displayed by the drones hovering over the facility. If we could be out of here before the Heroes showed up, it would be totally fine with me. Sure, a good fight could get me some infamy but I would prefer to choose my own fights. Not realistic, but true nonetheless.

Galatea was plugging away, shoveling data from the laboratory-server into my storage when the lights went out. The server-room had been taken from the power-supply in order to keep me from stealing their research. Annoying.

A quick look revealed the power-input and unplugged the outside supply and quickly jury-rigged it into my armour, connecting it to the charging-port of my railgun and powered it directly. I had to carefully monitor the flow, my positron/electron energy-system was not compatible with a standard electric system, so I had to abandon my overwatch with the drones outside, letting them hover above the building.

I heard a small commotion outside as the facility-guards tried to get to me. Taking Anath with me proved useful just then, she waited outside the server-room, making sure that no guard made his way into the server-room, interrupting my progress. Sure, normally I could knock them down without trouble but not if I was tethered to the server with stupid data-cables.

“I have finished the transfer, Al…” just as Galatea told me that she was done, an explosion shook the building we were in.

“The hell?!” I heard Anath curse outside the room as I unplugged myself. Something just went wrong, very wrong and I had a good guess what.

“I can’t connect to the drones in the vicinity.” reported Galatea, proving my hypothesis. Someone had caused one or more of the surveillance-drones to go into catastrophic failure-mode, making it discharge its energy crystal within a split-second instead of letting it discharge over the three days the drone could remain operational. The effect was an explosion equivalent to a truckload of TnT going off.

“Let’s go. There should be company waiting outside.” I told Anath and started my way towards the exit. Maybe we got lucky and the Heroes camped out on the front-door, while we went out the back-door and vanished into the night.

Sadly, it was not to be. The Heroes were not that stupid. At least not all of them.

As soon as I exited the back-door, I felt something tug on me and saw an old friend, Galactic Grip focusing on me and holding his strange pose. At the same time, I felt myself stiffen, unable to walk or move my arms. So that was his power, he froze people with his grip. Too bad for him, I was his worst opponent. My Plasma-Cannon did not rely on me moving, Galatea could do that just fine. She picked up on my problem immediately and shot a low energy-bolt at him, forcing him into a dodge, breaking his grip.

But he was not alone and the short delay had given his team time to converge. Battlemaster came running from the front, followed by the cryokinetic I had fought before and another hero, this one looked female for once.

“Are you fucking insane?!” said female shouted as soon as she got close enough. “That was your drone, wasn’t it? How can you use something so destructive in a city?!”

Ah, so she was probably the one who blew up my drone. I wondered what her power-set was, To make the crystal fail like that, it had to be blasted with energy, the easiest ways would be thermal or electric and to make out a black drone hovering high in the night-sky, that was another feat. But maybe the pyromancer was close by and had blown up my drone. He could do it with his fireballs.

“It is not more destructive than the next gas-station.” I said, a little peeved that she called me insane for my drones. Those were harmless and I almost said as much. But monologuing was for foolish villains so my further communication was with light-signals. After all, my plasma-bolts were glowing in a nice, dull, red light.

The following fight turned out interesting, I forced the cryokinetic to stay close to Galactic Grip, covering him with his ice-shields or my bolts would knock down. At the same time, Anath focused on their girl and the sparks and lightning-discharge showed her power as some kind of electro-manipulation. Battlemaster was trying to keep me engaged so one of the others could start doing damage but I had learned from my fight with him, I kept moving and used delaying tactics.

It took me a short time to realise that we had a problem. Neither side was winning but I’d bet my last nickel that they had reinforcements on the way.

“We need to run, flashbang incoming.” I told Anath via earbud before letting one of my thigh-flashbangs fall out, stunning Battlemaster and giving me a moment to breathe. I was unaffected and Anath was largely unaffected as both visors had gone dark the moment the grenade exploded, protecting our eyes. Anath was a little shaken due to the sound but she knew it was coming and shook it off. Voltage Girl took it quite bad, maybe she had some kind of sensory power and she presented a large opening in her defence that Anath took with glee, knocking her down and ending their fight. At the same time, I smacked down the stunned Battlemaster, making sure that he would not get up soon.

I took out my grenade-launcher, sending multiple flash-bangs at the two remaining heros, dropped two smoke-grenades and we were good to go. As one, Anath and I turned and headed towards the waypoint I had set as escape-path one, vanishing into a maze of back-alleys and hidden paths.