The Plaguebearers - Log Two

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Logan, Sharon and Julian venture down through the tunnel in the lab into the sewers, only to discover a researcher from the project with some bad news about their 'subject'



The tunnel led down at a forty-five degree angle. It was oddly constructed; not like it had been burned or cut through, but instead shaped, as the brick and steel and dirt and concrete had been melted together and then fused again, to create the roughly smooth shaft. As they got further, a stench rose up to greet them, dank and sour. It could only mean it went into the sewer system.

The whole place felt wrong. The whole situation felt wrong. Logan touched a hand to the wall now and again to see if there was a point it was normal. He grit his teeth as his senses were flooded with sewage and garbage and the stink of human refuse. "Ugh, why do we always end up in the damn sewers?"

"What makes them fun also makes for nice hiding places." Sharon replied as she followed she behind him, her expression like she had bitten in a sour lemon. "Though this is... uck." She focused on breathing through her mouth as much as possible in an effort not to let the stench affect her.

Julian held his nose with one hand and extended his other before him with a glowing, green energy-shell around it to illuminate the dim chamber. "It's not the worst smell I've ever come across," the pinched words echoed against the brick in the dark chamber as he slowly let his senses stretch in either direction down the corridor, feeling for anything wrong and coming across things he'd never imagined he'd touch- he was going to need several showers after this mission.

"Yeah, could be worse." No actively dead bodies as far as Logan could tell right now. But wading through the sewage system still happend far too often for his liking. The slosh-swish of the water as they moved through it nearly masked the sounds of the escapees they were after. One second he thought he'd focused on the right sound then the next it was just another echo off the sewer tunnel walls.

Sharon shone her flashlight around, looking for any detail that would show them the path to their escapees. "There..." She held her beam on a piece of bright material. "Looks like it might be a bit of the hazmat suits..."

The scrap floated over to her, suspended by the same greenish glow that was around Julian's hands and just beginning to hint in his eyes. "Feels about right for that," he kept sloshing forward. "I suppose that means we're on the right track then," there was a hint of resignation in his voice.

"Better than the alternative," Logan said. They'd get some answers by tracking someone down. Probably more questions too but that was usually the case. Sooner they figured out the bastard behind all this the sooner they could put an end to things.

"And we have another." Sharon's light fell on another piece of brightly colored material; this one hanging from a piece of metal on the wall. "Looks like someone was in a bit of a mood when they tore off their suite. Can you smell anything yet?"

"Whole place is full of smells." But Logan trudged forward and took a good whiff of the torn fabric. It reeked of panic and desperation. Once they caught up with this guy they were going to get some good answers. He stepped back and took a deep breath. He moved forward a few steps and took another then nodded his head toward a series of tunnels to the left. "Bit stronger that way."

Julian sent a pulse down the tunnel, but the assault on his actual senses limited the effective range- he was as hindered as his companions were, but was resolved not to show it. Without a word he turned to follow Logan, still holding his nose. As they sloshed on, he continued sending out pulses through the suffocating air, finally he found something as one of his pulses slipped down a short side tunnel- it pinged what felt like a human. "Oh," he pointed into the darkness.

Logan surged ahead of their little group. The sooner they found the guy the sooner they could get out of this stinky hellhole. The smell of person was starting to get stronger, floating above the rest of the mess. It was also fresher. He saw more pieces of torn suit either floating by or caught along the sides of the sewer. He could just about hear breathing too. Maybe they'd luck out and the idiot wound up too exhausted to get any farther. He turned a corner and spotted a man hanging onto the bottom rungs of a ladder out of here.

Sharon sloshed over and standing tiptoe she just managed to reach the artery on his neck with her fingers. After a few moments she shook her head grimly. "No pulse. Has not been long though. We must be close."

This close Logan detected another scent. More animalistic than human. Mutant more than likely, after whatever the hell had been done to them. But there was another scent too. Another human still wandering around down here. "Smells like there's another one 'round here somewhere. Further down and whatever did this went the same way."

Fighting back the urge to vomit, Julian wordlessly sloshed back through the mire to the main tunnel. This wasn't his first time seeing death, and it wasn't even the worst state he'd ever seen a body in...but to die in a place like this, that weighed on his mind as he continued to send pulses forward into the darkness- trying to find someone. He was getting careless though, not pushing as softly as he could and some of the pulses were bouncing back at his comrades.

"Be careful, Keller." Sharon hissed as she both saw and felt the mild pressure over here. "Things are bad enough already without a bath in this!" Suddenly her eyes narrowed. "Is that light ahead?"

Logan already stunk more than he ever cared to. What was a little more stench? That didn't mean he didn't dodge any wayward splashes from Julian's pulses. He squinted at the very slight change in light. "Yeah, possibly. Either that's an openin' outta here or a larger area. Hopin' for the former myself."

Julian closed his eyes and focused a pulse ahead to the light, "It's a chamber...maybe drainage? Something...else." He was about to send another pulse forward to figure out what was going on when something else caught his attention from a side chamber, or rather someone. "Ah," he pulled the person out- perhaps not as gently as he could have and suspended them just above the mire before them.

"Ah! Jesus!" The man almost shrieked, unaware of the appearance of others or the use of powers. "Um, don't hurt me? Please?"

Sharon stepped forward, quickly looking the man over for any apparent injuries. There didn't seem to be any serious ones. "Who are you? And what happened?" She demanded.

"I'm Dr. Sikorski. Ray Sikorski. I was one of the researchers on this project." He calmed down slightly as his feet hit the ground. He was moderate in height and build, wearing a red jumpsuit with a badly stained lab coat over it. He had what looked like the love child of an iPhone and a universal remote in one hand and a pair of silvery rifles slung over his shoulder.

"I'd keep talking, we just slogged through who-knows-what to rescue you," Julian tried to gently set him down on a nearby ledge, and at the last moment, quickly, stripped the rifles and removed them from him, sending both to Sharon.

Sharon grabbed both rifles, slugging one over her shoulder, snapping the other one open to have a look at the ammo. It didn't look familiar, but almost closely resembled the armor piercing munition she had seen. "And what the hell are you hunting that you need something that looks armor piercing ammo?"

"It's not armor piercing. Well, it is. But not entirely. These are tranq rifles, designed to punch through the hardened skin of the subject and deliver an incapacitating dose."

Logan cast a glance at the guns and arched an eyebrow. "Yeah? And how much of a dose ya needin' to use to put him down?" He nodded toward the device in his hands. "And what ya got there? Anythin' we might need to solve your problems for ya?"

The device flew from the doctors hand and to Logan's suspended by a pale green glow. Julian glanced at it as it flew by, "Tracking device, right? I picked something like it up from my vet when I had Harley and Nick fitted with RFID chips." Julian stepped forward, his eyes completely greened out as he motioned toward the doctor again, lifting her back up. "You care to tell us what you're tracking down here Doctor Sikorski?"

"Our lab housed a mutant that had been... altered over the last few years. Originally, it was to save his life from his own powers. Then it was... decided to optimize them. Over the last two years, my team has been working to try and reverse both the artificial mutations and his natural ones to a state where he's not a danger to himself or others." Noticing the looks, he sighed. "About six years ago, a Roxxon employee manifested. Originally, they thought the chemicals at the site had been involved. Treating him, they discovered that a potent venom was part of his blood stream. It was killing him. By the time they developed a way to kickstart his body's immunity, the poison had caused enough brain damage that the patient was essentially feral. The program fell into some ill-advised hands for a period of time and they tried to make a weapon. The company found out and replaced them, but not before we had... Death Adder. My team has tried to reverse the effects but to little success. If he gets out, you will have a feral mutant who can breathe underwater, heal quickly, and can inject a venom that is a hundred times more toxic than any poison on the planet to date."

"Nice. A poisonous lean mean killing machine." Sharon shook her head. "Any weaknesses we can take advantage of when we hunt him down?"

"His brain is so damaged that even simple mechanical devices like locked doors or grates are beyond him." The doctor shrugged helplessly. "I wish I had more. Truly."

Logan was poking at the various controls on the tracking device. It seemed a bit too complicated to be just a tracking device. He'd hand it off to Kitty or Kane for their opinion on the thing. He flipped a switch and there was a faint dot that faded in and out at random. "So basically, we needa knock him out then lock him up in a modern version of the Labyrinth. And that's gonna be the most humane thing he'll have been dealt in years, ain't it?"