14 Infiltration

When the trail of footsteps came to an end, it did so abruptly. Britney stood atop a sand dune and scanned her surroundings. Nothing but desert in every direction.

Where had the Wolf gone?

She knelt down and examined the foot tracks closely. At the place where the trail ended, the tracks seemed to reverse directions. Almost as if the Wolf had turned around, but why? Could it be that he did so to climb a ladder?

She began to rummage through the sand by her feet, looking for clues. Both of her arms were submerged to the elbow. She dug and dug some more hoping to find something to point her to the Wolf. She wasn't sure exactly what she expected to find, but whatever it was, she didn't find it. Instead, all she got was a mouthful of sand. She sat down on the dune and sighed in frustration.

Where on earth did he go? No way he just up and vanished into thin air. There must be a reasonable explanation.

"Modulation detected," Nina said. "Enhancing."

Britney looked towards the holes she had dug. The sand at the bottom of the deepest hole began to pixelate and blur. She felt at it, rubbing her hand against the sand. At first, it felt coarse to the touch. Slowly, however, it seemed as if the number of sand grains was beginning to decrease. Soon, there was only one continuous surface, and it was cold to the touch. She dug around the deepest hole, expanding into the shape of a square, and revealing a trap door. Somehow, the sand was transformed into metal.

She stood up, grinning. This was where the Wolf had disappeared to. There was no time to consider the implications of modulation technology being able to change the texture of things and not just the look of them. There was no time for her to admit that maybe Nina was more than a little useful. That would all have to wait for later. The mission took precedence.

She tore off her clothes and tossed them to the side. She breathed hard as the scorching sun glared down at her. A bead of sweat dripped from her bare breast and onto the metal door below. Then another from her brow. And another from her thigh. In moments, the entirety of Britney's naked body was coated with sweat.

Two hundred and fifty Fahrenheit can do that to a girl.

She ran both hands through her auburn hair, which was now sticky with sweat. She tied it up in a bun behind her head and reached for her purse. She pulled out her AmpSuit and began to put it on. The black one-piece fit tightly but comfortably around her body, and as she zipped up the final zipper, the suit began to cool her, relieving her somewhat from the unbearable heat. The fatigue she had felt from walking for hours evaporated instantly as the suit multiplied her strength.

Next, she put on her ModGloves and ModBoots. They were a darker shade of black and reached up to her elbows and knees.

I look like the world's sweatiest scuba diver, she thought, shaking her head. The only difference is I'm hunting sharks, not hiding from them.

"Britney, I can not allow you to go in there. CONTACTING ARTHUR."

"We've already been through this. You're not in charge. I get the envelope and then you can contact whomever you please," Britney said, annoyed.

"That was before we discovered what appears to be a terrorist compound. This is far too dangerous. There could be hundreds of well-armed, well-trained terrorists in there."

"We are not having this discussion. I'm going in."

"Mistress please I implore you, be rational about this. I can feel your anger, you want blood. We do not have the manpower nor the equipment for an infiltration, let alone an assault… If my physical form was present, then perhaps we could manage. But on your own? The probability of survival is negligible. Remember Arthur's advice. Do not let your emotions control you!"

Britney flinched at that last part, then frowned. "I'm going in, and that's final. You're welcome to help me, but if you continue being insubordinate I will shut you off. I reckon Arthur wouldn't be too happy if his protege got killed on account of you being annoying!"

Nina did not reply to that, and Britney took the silence as agreement.

She pictured a blade and willed her right ModGlove to transform. The part of the glove that covered her forearm began to retreat from her elbow and move towards her wrist. It looked almost like black liquid, burbling with tiny black cubes in the place of bubbles. It wrapped around her hand, engulfing it. She heard a familiar click as the liquid glove formed into a blade with magnetic precision. The ebony blade was half a meter long and extended out of the place her hand used to be. It was sharp on all edges and was both as thick and as wide as her hand.

The hand itself was in the hollow part of the glove, encased with gleaming dark metal. She clenched her hand into a fist and punched at the trap door underneath. The blade cut through the metal effortlessly. She began to saw through it, attempting to create an opening. The glove cut through the door like it was cake, and Britney figured that it was made of steel, based on how easy it was to saw through.

When a circular cutout was hanging on by a single metallic thread, she prompted her left glove to become a magnet and placed it carefully on the cutout, cutting the last piece off with her right.

Can't have a piece of metal clattering on the ground and blowing my cover. She thought. Then she tossed the piece of steel aside, and it fell on the ground, blowing sand into the air.

Britney prompted her Eye to begin aesthetic modulation. She stared at her right hand - which was back to being a glove rather than a blade - as it started to become blurry, and then transparent shortly thereafter. She peered down at the rest of her body and grinned.

Why blend in when you can disappear?

She dove through the hole and landed in a crouch on the hard concrete below. She was in some sort of tunnel. It was pitch black, save for light coming from a wide opening at the end of it.

According to her EyeView display she was twenty feet below the desert. The distance to the likely entry point was two miles. And spectrometer data indicated that the concrete walls are over a century old.

A nuclear bunker perhaps? Likely a relic of the American-Chinese war.

She willed her ModBoots to turn soft, and in an instant, her feet felt like they were wrapped in silk instead of metal.

They can't see me coming, but I better make sure they don't hear me either.

She prompted her Eye for night vision, then thermal vision. No hostiles. She switched back to night vision.

She dashed out at a gallop, ripping through the air like a bullet. EyeView clocked her at one hundred miles per hour. The air was still, but she created her own wind. She worked her legs harder, propelling herself forward. With each passing step, she moved faster and faster. Two hundred miles per hour. Britney couldn't help but grin.

All this speed... All this power...

It felt exhilarating.

She was a speeding locomotive.

Stand in my way, and you get trampled! I'm coming, Wolf.

In less than forty seconds she was nearly at the entrance of the compound. And just like a train, Britney had to put on the brakes as she approached her stop. The opening was wide enough to fit a set of massive double doors, but there were none. She shut off her night vision and was immediately blinded by the light.

She took a moment to allow her eyes to get adjusted, leaning against the parapet and placing her hands on the metal railing. She was on some sort of balcony, overlooking what appears to be an ancient manufacturing plant on the story below. It was a strange sight. She'd never seen men and women physically operating machinery before.

Strange to think how people used to live so… primitively.

She turned to her left surveying what she now realized was an enormous walkway and not just a balcony, and only saw a wall blocking the way three hundred feet ahead. She turned to her right.

Better go this way. No dead-end for several thousand fee--

She froze. A guard stood not twenty feet from her. Not only was the guard wearing an AmpSuit just like hers - virtually rendering all of her physical advantages and 'power' useless - but he was armed to the teeth. An awesome collection of weapons she'd never seen hung from his belt. Outside of a few blades and pistols, she had no idea what the weapons could do, and she had no intention of finding out. She began to back away slowly.

At least he can't see--

"Carl, is that you over there? Stop messing about. Why the fuck are you so blurry?" The guard said, squinting.

He was looking right at her. She panicked.

No that can't be right...

She glanced down at her hand. Still transparent. What in Hermes's name is going on?

By the time she looked up, the man was already attacking. He moved with inhuman speed, and if Nina hadn't been in her head helping her locate him, she would have been dead.

He roared and swung at her head with a double-handed swing.

Britney let her training take over. She became still. Calm and Composed.

She ducked down, and the black blade missed her face by a hair's breadth, biting into the railing behind her instead. She rose with an uppercut, instinctively picturing a blade. Her fist turned to metal, cutting through the man's neck, and out through the back of his skull.

His lifeless body slumped against her shoulder, head still stuck to her blade. As she retracted it, warm blood poured down on her in sheets. She pushed the limp corpse off of her, and it fell to the ground with a thud.

She stumbled back and fell to the ground, struggling to grasp what had just happened. She looked at her gloved hand, it was coated with a deep crimson, but transparent otherwise. Her hand began to tremble.

Could it be? She thought. This… This can't be right. It must be a dream…

She glanced back at the corpse. The man's face was as pale as snow, his blood leaking from the wound and pooling around him.

It's no dream… I ... I did that. Britney spits out some of the man's blood that had somehow gotten in her mouth and wiped some more from her face. She sat their arms wrapped around her knees and began to weep. Tears streamed down her cheeks and mixed with the blood. She hadn't meant to kill him. She'd never wanted to kill anyone. Not even the Wolf. Of course, she'd had thoughts of killing the man who'd massacred her family. Terrible, murderous, unacceptable thoughts, but that's all they were. Unwanted, intrusive thoughts. Everyone had those.

She wasn't a killer... Was she?

I had no choice… He would have killed me. It was in self-defense.

That wasn't true and she knew it. She did have a choice. She could have turned her ModGlove into a blunt object instead of a blade and knocked him out. She could have pretended to be 'Carl', and subdued him. She could have turned around and ran back to the desert. But instead, she had killed him.

Somehow, through some combination of adrenaline and the horror of realizing what she'd just done, she hadn't noticed the smell. It was revolting. It stunk of urine, human feces, and the scent of meat beginning to rot.

I think I'm going to be sick.

"Ay Jenkins. You alright up there mate? What's with all the shouting?" A voice said from below.

"Nothin' to worry about," Nina said through a speaker in her earring, and in Jenkins' voice. "Had to let out some gas. It was a dirty one, so I thought I'd let you boys know that there was some fire in the hole."

She heard the sound of a few men laughing. "Good call that," one of the men said. "It smells like shit, I can smell it from down here." The clattering footsteps suggested they were walking away.

"See boss, I told you Jenkins is an alright chap. He ain't nothin' like Donald. He follows orders and he won't hide anything from ya. He'll even tell you when he shits himself."

Britney sniffled and wiped more tears away. The man had been a terrorist, and she had done the world a favor by getting rid of him. How many innocent lives would he have taken? How many children would he have orphaned? He was a piece of filth that deserved to die, and the world was a better place without him in it...

She had done the right thing... hadn't she?

No matter how she tried to justify it, she could not shake one undeniable truth. She had killed him.

I, Britney Law, am a murderer. She shivered at the thought.

The realization was devastating, and it weighed heavily on her conscience. Who was she to play judge, jury, and executioner?

What she had done changed everything, and she knew that nothing would ever be the same. Gone were the days of the bright-eyed young girl who wanted to change the world, and here were the days of the ruthless investigator who killed to achieve her goals…

She took a deep breath.

Get yourself together Britney, she thought. This is neither the time nor the place to confront my inner demons. No, that would have to wait for later. For now, she had a mission to complete, so she buried her emotions deep within.

She lifted the man's corpse high above her head and tossed it down the dark tunnel from where she had come. The body hit the ground with a thud a few hundred feet away.

"It seems that the terrorists are equipped with anti-modulation technology. In other words, you are not invisible to them." Nina said.

"Oh really? What gave it away?"

"It's time to leave mistress. The Alliance Forces can handle it from here. This is well beyond our jurisdiction."

"Negative. We push forward," Britney said with authority, wiping all evidence of having just balled her eyes out moments prior.

"You are being extremely foolish. There is a zero percent chance of survival. There are hundreds, if not thousands of potential hostiles. Armed with heavy weaponry and their own Amplification Suits. You have lost your one and only advantage. We must leave now."

"We push forward. I am not leaving here without that envelope!"