3.1 Progress marches on...

10:15AM, 15th April, 1989

Location: Brain and Mallah's lair.

Flying out again for the second time, May, Fleur, Louise (because she was curious) and I reached the site of the hidden base. I was being used as a cargo plane, flying everyone from inside Fleur's car. For the heaters. It's chilly out there this morning.

I placed it down on the landing pad that had been hidden by a holographic projection of a mountainside. This was where Fleur and May's team breached the base, eventually. May could tell the plants and their roots that should have been there were not real.

There were more conventional weapons here, possibly Mallah's contributions to the defences. His personal armoury as well, including several varieties of laser, sonic stun and modified conventional firearms and explosives.

The big ticket item however was a complete, automated construction facility; like a 3D printer on Bane's steroids. Designs go in, machines come out. It had very specific material requirements however and most of Brain's tech was made from (stolen) exotic materials.

A replacement stealth plane had still been in the process of construction when we attacked.

However power had been restored to the lair, which had surprisingly not triggered any form of self destruct. With this, the plane's construction had continued, once the machine had booted up.

It was perhaps two days from complete.

That had been Brain's downfall; he had put all his eggs in one basket. Only one transport plane which I had shot down. Magic tracking was a further oversight. Together, they were a disaster. Cornered.

Mallah had been arming the defences as Brain primed the self destruct; except I came too quickly, shredding their defences. The power supply cutting out had been key to stopping the base from crumbling, since it was the power generators going critical which was supposed to destroy the place. However the generators were still whole, dismantling them for study should yield interesting results.

With portable military replacements we finally got the place running again, without the inevitable death of using unknown power plants.

And what a place it was. A primary base, I'd expect. All the comforts of home. A crop of hydroponic banana and other fruits in the lower level. A bed and shower for the monkey, dissection lab as recreation for Brain.

The computer was compromised and dangerous, so it had been taken for parts to be reverse engineered. The OS was something homebrewed by Brain. Once the hard drives were replicated we would be examining the code… and hopefully extract his designs.

The teleportation device was also a coup. Even if it had the military's best scientists scratching their heads about how it worked.

However a great deal of Brain's tech was merely more efficient, miniaturised or better designed than conventional gear. For example: he was using a communications system in the base that was, in effect a mobile phone network… each 'phone' being the size of smart phone from 2018. This is compared to the bricks people call mobiles in the current year.

Anyhow, what had the tech people swooning was Brain's physics lab. Apparently he had some of his most recent discoveries still listed on chalkboards. Including a simple anti-gravity generator design. All explained in detail in preparation to transfer them to his computer.

His biology lab was nearly as amazing, inside was a variety of pods containing clones. Copies of that giant he had made into a cyborg defender. While the clones being grown as soldiers was a big problem, using the same method to force grow braindead clones for organ transplants was a logical move.

But despite this I was no closer to understanding why we were here.

"So, you've been very tight lipped, Fleur. Why are we out here?" I asked, cutting to the heart of the matter.

She smiled. "Well, that is simple. Do you want this base?"

"Wait… what?" I asked, jaw dropping.

"Your team, to be specific." She elaborated. "Meeting in a cafe is nice between just the two of us, but all of the cameras and reporters trying to trace me is becoming a problem for my regular business. I'll remain your handler, of course. The President doesn't want to kill the goose that laid golden eggs. Besides, May must want to sleep somewhere besides your couch."

"Actually she doesn't, she sneaks into my bed at night once I'm asleep." I frowned.

"No! That's not right!" Louise overheard. Oh god, here comes the cat fight. "That's clearly improper behaviour! I'll have to keep an eye on the both of you as the eldest!"

Wait… did she just invite herself to live at my place?

"I expect you to make sure these too precocious kids don't do anything hasty, with or without you." Fleur added.

I face palmed. While May was just watching and nodding, understanding nothing.

"So… I suppose I'll need to take this place off your hands, if only to get undisturbed sleep ever again." I remark. "How did it come to this, anyway?"

"Aside from the technology, the base itself isn't particularly useful as more than a safe house. It's on Écrins National Park land, and thus legally protected from further expansion so we can't even sell it to some eccentric type. Really it was either be used as a safe house, gift it to you for permanent use for the foreseeable future or abandon it." She shrugged. "If nothing else, you can hide from the press here."

"To be clear, as long as we don't dig deeper, we can do anything we like with it?" I glance around. "I guess if Batman has a Batcave and Superman has a Fortress of Solitude then I can have Magnet Mountain."

I paused. "What happened with the remains of… those two?"

"Currently in a lab, being examined in depth. The Brain's machine was fascinating and the processes both of their brains have been subjected to are equally bizarre." Fleur explained.

Louise wrinkled her nose in disgust at the morbid turn of the conversation.

"Make sure they are cremated and their ashes scattered, zombies and worse exist and I don't want to meet them again." I really don't want to meet a Black Lantern Mallah. Brain with a ring would be weird… he'd probably have to slip it over his prefrontal cortex and float around as a disembodied zombie brain.

Louise nodded energetically agreeing. "Oh yes, necromancy is always a concern. The Dead are just as capable of telling tales as the living."

Who knows what they have sitting in other bases and I wouldn't expect Brain to make any more errors designing anti-me weapons. He saw enough from close range to have some theories he could offer.

"So dibs on rooms?" I asked. "May, this place is ours. Which room do you want?"

"Greenhouse." She responded. No surprises there.

"Louise?" I asked.

"Me?! But I thought..." She began.

"The team needs a magic expert and outfitter. Hmm. That guy from a while back said he was an engineer too. Maybe he could do something with any odds and ends left behind by Brain the military don't need?" I queried.

Fleur shrugged. "Your call, not mine."

"I'll give him an offer when he gets out of hospital. His arm was broken fairly badly and he's homeless." I shrug. "It'll be a trial run. As far as my own room, I think I like the Physics lab."

"I'll take Mallah's room." Louise finally said. "After all, it has the only shower in the building." She smiled deviously.

"Actually, the hydroponics room has one as well… and the cloning lab, to hose down clones… and the dissection lab..." Louise looked queasy at the last one mentioned.

"Right, I could have been on that slab." I remarked to myself. "We'll convert that into a full bathroom."

"I saw a small kitchen area off to one side. Let's have a look!" Louise declared grabbing my hand and dragging me along. Trying to distract me from the unpleasant thoughts? I guess it can't hurt, for now.