Lower Floors

While searching the storage facility, Thoth access all the monitor panels and retrieved data on all the experiments and result of the people in the containers. I on the other hand have started to use my suit's horns to search every inch of this floor. I even went back through the other rooms to rind something to left us travel further than just this floor.

Thoth met up with me at the lift after he finished retrieving the data from the monitors. He joined in my search for another secret entrance. We went through every room, checked every wall, tile, cabinet and computer for anything that could lead us to the next floor. We even went back to the lift and checked that. And lo and behold, there was a secret panel on the lift's floor.

Under the panel, there was a kind of grove or slot for something. Maybe some kind of key or level. After analyzing it, we found circuitry underneath that most likely controlled the lift to go lower. We had to use a weakened version of my lasers to cut away the metal on top and then hotwire the circuitry to Thoth in order to bypass the security and control the lift. Based on the controls on the lift, there were five floors counting this one.

We quickly descended down to the 2nd level. When the lift finished it's slow crawl down, we disconnected from the lift and went to explore again, but this floor was bigger than the last and made me wonder if the others are going to be the same.

When I looked at out surroundings, I noticed a monitor hanging from the ceiling with an attached camera. I wondered what the point of it was considering that this place was abandoned it no longer served a purpose. I was wrong of course.

The next second, the monitor turned one and their was a static filled image showing. Poor reception I'm guessing. We waited for the screen to clear up and even had Thoth boost the signal, so we could see and hear whoever was sending the image or message.

When the image cleared up, I saw a person that looked slightly familiar but not completely. It seemed to be the High Evolutionary in his human form. Hopefully this is the form not consumed by madness.

"So, you thought you can just walk right in and take anything you want huh? Just steal all of my research? Who do you think you are? Do you have any idea who this facility belongs to?"(H.E.)

Dang. It's the crazy one. Hopefully not completely. I can work with kind of crazy, but not with completely batshit crazy.

"Hello, High Evolutionary. I'm well aware of who you are and less so your work. I had assumed that this place was abandoned and all the research here was stuff you no longer needed or that you deemed unnecessary. But, while it may be no longer useful to you, your old research is extremely important to me, as I'm studying in the same field of knowledge and also trying to seek human evolution. Sadly, my research has come to a standstill as humanitarian laws and lack of materials and knowledge have lead me to a dead end, but I've heard of you and this abandoned facility and thought I could use your old research to improve mine. It just that I didn't think you would see any value at your old research with the level you're currently at."(Vincent)

"Hmmm. True it doesn't really hold much value and all the knowledge from there, I already have it memorized and backed up on my ship, but why should that mean that I'll allow anyone to just waltz in here uninvited and steal what belongs to me?"(H.E.)

"Well I just figured that you wouldn't mind passing down your knowledge to a worthy successor, instead of it disappearing from the face of the Earth."(Vincent)

"Hmm. Very well, a trial then. I have now activated the security systems in the facility and released so of the stronger results of my earlier experiments. If you can survive, then you may keep whatever you get from this place, but if not, well you die."(H.E.)

"I'll gladly accept that challenge."(Vincent)

After we finished talking, the monitor screen went black, but the red light on the attached camera was still on, which means that he is watching us.

As soon as we walk past the monitor, hidden panels on the wall and ceiling open up and security turrets begin to descend. I quickly hopped onto my glider and had it open fire on the ground turrets. While that was happening, I grabbed a couple skull bombs and threw the and the ceiling turrets. Some of them exploded in a flash of energy while others split and turned into razor bats, which cut the supports of the ceiling turrets and caused them to fall onto the turrets on the ground which led them to malfunction and explode. As for the bullets that came my way, my Barrier Belt activated and protected me from the incoming fire.

During this time, Thoth was nimbly jumping from surface to surface and cutting away at the turrets, causing them to shut down. At other times, he would shock the turrets, causing to short circuit and explode. This all happened within a matter of minutes.

Once we had handled all of the turrets, we proceeded down the long halls towards the lab, experiment, and storage rooms on the floor. This floor had twice as much space in each room. This allowed for larger experiments to take place and facilitated and a growth of the scale of research and security. Every time we walked through the halls more and more security defenses and traps activated. We had to deal with turrets, giant spikes, poisonous darts, giant saw blades, etc. This lab pretty much went medieval with some of the traps, while others were more dangerous. Falling ceilings, sudden jets of flames, poisonous gases, etc. The only thing we didn't run into was the released experiments. I guess they were on the lower floors.

While collecting more data and research, we saw more examples of the previous experiments the High Evolutionary committed. There were more preserved bodies, with even more drastic changes to them in the experiment room and there were more people in stasis in the storage room.

The results of the experiments on this floor, I honestly couldn't tell if it was better or worse. Whatever it was, it showed that the High Evolutionary was getting closer to whatever he was trying to achieve.

The same thing happened for the third floor as well, except longer halls, more traps and a lot more experiment results. The High Evolutionary is truly a madman to have done this on such a large scale. How had no one noticed. What were Shield and the government doing when so many people were going missing in this country and while all these atrocities were taking place. How many people had actually died in here due to his experiments and how long have the living ones been in stasis?

Just thinking about this had killed all my excitement about getting the High Evolutionary's research. The only thing I was happy about was that now that I was here, I would be able to free the ones in stasis and given enough time to study the High Evolutionary's research, I should be able to reverse the process or at least progress in to the point where they are like Beast from the X-men.

With that thought we continue down to the fourth floor. The fourth floor was massive and contained many open areas to allow the living experiments to fight any intruders. On this level, it seems this is where the High Evolutionary stopped trying to evolve humans with animal dna and went with the opposite of evolving animals with human dna.

The creatures we ran into on this floor was large creatures that had a mixed appearance of different beasts put together, but the were more put together than the humans. The were violent and in a constant state of bloodthirst. I don't know if this was an intentional outcome or just the result of repeated inhumane experiments.

Thoth and I had our hands full with this fight as the creatures swarmed up and they were intelligent enough to react to our attacks and pair up with others to attack us from multiple sides. They even managed to separate Thoth and I from each other.

I was on my glider, releasing a volley of energy blasts and tossing out razor bats, skull bombs and even some of the knock out gas to slow them down. Any that got too close, were blasted by a beam of electricity from my hands. Any closer than that and they were electrocuted as I grabbed them.

In the distance, I could see Thoth jumping around, slashing his blades and mowing through the creatures.

We fought for hours. Every time we came to a new open area on this floor, there was another swarm. The traps in the hall were nothing to sneeze at either, but it was manageable. These beast just seemed to be never ending.

When we did finish off all the beasts on this floor, I noticed that a few in each group had some kind of tags around their necks. We went around and collected them all just in case there was something important about them. I even had Thoth scan them and when he did, he discovered that they were some kind of encryption keys.