Chapter IV: Day of Evolution, Part 2

When Wyatt tells you he's gonna be somewhere at a certain time, he almost always means he'll be there five minutes after. And this evening is no different. I specifically told him to be there at 8:00 PM on the dot. I stressed it, over and over again. I even sent him a text about an hour ago, to make sure and he still came exactly 7 minutes late. I saw his car pull up in the distance as he stepped out and walked over to me, seemingly pretty hidden in the even pitch black.

The part of town that the labs were at was far off from the rest of the city. It was off a road that lead to the bridge, add to that the fact that there are little to no lamp-posts, it's a pretty well secluded and fairly sketchy tourist destination to find yourself in. I couldn't help but stare at the huge neon sign that read VEGA-CORP. This big, hulking monstrosity of a building used to be a JPEG that I'd stare at for days, trying to figure something of it. Now that I'm face first with it; it's so much bigger and much less intimidating and ominous than I used to see it as. The kind of building you'd find on a list of evil-looking buildings.

Wyatt finally reached me, slowly pulling his hood up over his weary face. He seemed nervous, and I feared that I was too. But I couldn't let him on to whatever was going in my head. Lead by example – that sort of thing..?

"I think my balls froze off." He said, rubbing his gloved hand together. He was dressed like a cat burglar. The backpack sold the look. "But I hear that's good for your balls to be cold. Helps the sp—"

I cut him off quickly, "—were you followed here?"

"No." He said, "I took four left turns, six right turns and did a loop-de-loop around the—"

"—you did a loop-de-loop?!"

He stepped back as if I'd hissed at him, "yeah, to keep whoever off my track!"

I caught my panic too late on. I took a breath and paced for a bit before Wyatt would ask again.

"You good?"

I was nervous, realizing that I might be biting off more than I can chew.

"Yeah." I said, stammeringly. "Cool as Ice. You know me."

I then lead him through some grass, using my flashlight to light the way only when it was pitch black. I avoided the motion sensors on the outer perimeter. There was also an infrared camera which would have trouble spotting in the freezing cold of this stupid Christmas. We looped all the way around back to find the spot that V told me about. Yes, I know it was stupid to gamble on some online weirdo's Intel, but you have to take some calculated risks when you're dealing with mega-corps that may or may not be up to some shady shit.

The spot that V told me about was a gap through the fence. Through the fence and onto the loading dock which overlooked the Harbor Bridge Strait. The loading dock was used for all kinds of vehicles, helicopters, trucks and sometimes boats. They'd always make and end deliveries at weirdly late hours. It's weird for everybody else, but not me. It was obviously to ship shady shit to their shady lab to deal some shady business. And luckily for Wyatt and me, a delivery was being made just as we passed through the fence and began to hide amongst the leaves.

It was a single truck pulling in from god knows where. This truck, though, didn't have the VegaCorp logo on the side. I couldn't tell the words of the livery from how dark it was but it was definitely not a truck that belonged there. It was the driver and two other guards who were helping offload a bunch of purple canisters. Those weren't hard to miss. Even through the veil they were using to cover them. The bright purple glow was impossible to miss.

"What the hell is that?" Said Wyatt in a louder-than-a-whisper.

I covered his mouth with my hand, "keep it down!" I hushed.

He nodded and spoke again after I removed my hand. "what are they shipping?" This time he whispered.

"Something E-Gangs have been calling 'Flinch'." I said, as they kept moving the canisters. "Apparently, it's like steroids to Evolved. Hops-up their powers and gives 'em an extra edge."

"So, it's like a drug?" He concluded.

"Pretty much." I said, "OK. Do you remember the plan?"

Wyatt gave me a distant glare; his eyes squinted with confusion and I knew for certain that this idea was getting worse and worse.

"For fuck's sake, Wyatt, I'll give you the simple, five year old version." The shakiness of my voice almost made me reconsider, but it felt like we were too deep in to go back. I pulled out my phone, set the brightness to the lowest setting and showed him the interior blueprints. The same ones I'd sent him earlier. You'd think he'd have memorized them, by now.

"We're here," I pointed to the loading dock and traced my finger across it and to where we needed to go. "We go through here and up to the South-East Power Generator. We point the flashlight at the camera and turn it off, that'll knock their power out for the next five minutes. That gives us exactly three minutes for security to get there. It gives us 2 minute to run in and grab a single sample of Flinch. We cut tail and run back out the loading dock, and hopefully take them down."

Wyatt nodded, "alright. And if we get caught, my dad can just bail us out."

"Do you trust me?" I asked, putting the phone away.

He scoffed like it was a stupid question, "hell yeah."

Somehow, Wyatt's approval gave me the extra kick I needed.

I lead him across, waiting for the perfect window where there'd be an open loading dock door, and no guards in sight. It was easy to keep him close so we'd avoid the blindspots of the camera; the ones whose feeds I'd been planning on taking. And since I hadn't actually taken a look, I was hoping – praying that we didn't walk into view.

It was surprisingly easy to pass through the hallway that was beyond the loading dock. We waited for the moment where the guards were walking toward the storage rooms, at the end of the hallway. As for the truck driver, he was already putting his car out of park and began to head out on his merry way.

Luckily for us, the interior cameras were on rotation; this particular model would scan ninety degree angles at a time. The tradeoff for the poor range would be 4k camera quality. I knew this because of a leaked clip that was posted on Cyclone. I also knew that it was legit because the person who posted it ended up getting turned to dust by some Evolved; I think it might've been one of Arthur Knight's celebrity friends. The actual video is out there somewhere if you wanna see if a human being can handle swallowing a mini-nuke.

We moved in 5 second intervals, staying just where we needed to be. The pitch black floors helped conceal us, as well, as we both had been wearing black, hoods up and the whole shebang. It also felt like breaking into a hospital in the late hours. I mean, that's to be expected when you're breaking into a laboratory, but those are usually made for helping people not experimenting on them.

From that leaked Cyclone clip, I also gleaned the password for the generator's security box password, or at least 7/8's of the digits. That meant I was missing one digit. The last digit was either an eight or a three. It was perfect fifty/fifty. If I get it right, it'll be real damn lucky; if I get it wrong, I'll at least know the answer for certain. And as we stood by the door to the Power Generator that the guards had just left, my mind raced for what felt like an eternity until I felt Wyatt tugging my arm and exclaiming only with his face.

"What's the password?" He said, pointing to the 3x3 keypad.

I took a deep breath and and extended my gloved hand. The shaking had gotten worse went straight to that hand. I looked to the side to see Wyatt looking around and keeping watch. I tightly gripped that hand with my other and steadied myself as I began to tap in the code. Each digit pressed was followed by a faint beep. 7 – 4 – 3 – 1 – 9 – 1 – 5 - ?

I locked up.

Fuck, fuck, fuck. If I get this wrong, we're so fucking screwed, you have no idea. But time was running out, and I had to decide.

7 – 4 – 3 – 1 – 9 – 7 – 5 – 8?