It was a twenty-minute walk from the bus stop to the SCI facility. The building itself was set back on a property surrounded by trees. It kept SCI hidden from the street, but it also let Willow get close without being seen.
As she neared the fence around the facility property, she slid a simple white mask over her face. She'd managed to make it at Scorpion without the Director noticing. If he had noticed, she'd been ready to pass it off as a new idea for the front plate of the soldiers' helmets. Part of her hated it—it felt tacky. But she couldn't risk SCI's cameras identifying her.
Willow ventured as close to the building as she dared and lowered herself to the ground behind some bushes. She opened her bag, reached past the drone she'd brought, and pulled out her laptop. While the camera feed loaded, she searched for incoming and outgoing signals.
Once she pinpointed the signals, tracking down the messages that were still being stored on the server was easy. It wasn't anything close to classified, but it was worth a quick look. She ran her search back for a few days, and—
"What's this?" Willow murmured, frowning. There was a spike in outgoing messages dated earlier that week.
The messages were encrypted. Willow threw them at her decryption program. Ordinarily, it would need a few hours to decode the messages, but data she had from already cracking other SCI encryptions would speed things up.
While that ran in the background, she switched back to the security cameras and smirked. "How nice. You labeled them for me." She flipped through the feed names. Lab 1, Lab 2, various offices, storage, server rooms, cellblock—
The cellblock had guests.
Eric, Raveena, Summer, Veronica, Sam...no Adam?
"Dumbasses," Willow muttered. Always snooping around in the wrong places. No surprise they got caught. Still, she felt a twinge of concern. What did SCI have planned for the altered they caught?
Willow already had a vendetta against SCI, given that they were buying tech from her father's company. She didn't care if they were on the government's payroll. One way or another, she was going to deal with them. It was just a matter of time. And figuring out how to do it without getting arrested.
She tried the lab cameras, hoping for a peek at whatever projects they were working on. After flipping through a few rooms that only held scientists—and a surprising number of security guards, even for a SCI facility—she found Adam. Her hands froze on the keyboard.
Adam sat at a table in the middle of the room. A researcher stood in front of him, jotting down notes on a tablet. Willow zoomed in. The quality wasn't good enough to closely read Adam's face, but he at least didn't seem to be in much pain.
A new window popped up onscreen, alerting Willow that the process of decrypting and downloading surface-level server data had finished. She could leave now and walk away with their messages, along with security footage, lab reports, and whatever else they'd left sitting on the local servers. That all might need some extra decryption work, but she'd be able to do it from the safety of her room at Scorpion. Willow closed the laptop and slid it into her bag.
She rose to her feet. What else was she supposed to do? Rescue the captured altered? They'd probably just get caught again by SCI later. Or Scorpion. Or get killed doing something else stupid.
As Willow walked away from the fence, she found herself recalling what she'd overheard between the Director and Claudia. Something was up with Eric. He had electrokinesis in addition to pyrokinesis. He'd been kidnapped as a child by Scorpion, probably experimented on. There were things about Scorpion's lab, their other projects, that the Director wasn't telling her.
Not like Adam's going to have any answers, Willow reminded herself. He has no idea what's going on. Moron.
She winced. That was harsh, even for her. And Adam had been nice to her, even after she'd been...less than nice to him.
Not that I asked him to be nice to me. I just wanted to get my damn work done.
Willow stopped and sighed. Adam had trusted her enough to collapse the energy field. Granted, he'd taken the fragment afterward—
The fragment! Willow whirled around. Maybe she could get information on where the Fortuna Guard was keeping it. She could sneak onto their ship at some point and steal it.
Was she trying to justify rescuing Adam to herself? Was she trying to make excuses for getting information out of them? Willow shook her head. Enough about feelings. What was the logical thing to do?
Getting her hands on the fragment was a priority. Uncovering Scorpion's secrets was another. And if she could find out anything more about SCI while inside, that was just a bonus.
"All right, Ackerman," Willow muttered as she walked toward the building. "You're gonna owe me big time."
~
The lab was freezing. That, combined with his growing anxiety, made Adam feel like his powers were trying to fight their way out. Fire burned just below the surface, ready to jump to life in his hands.
But with all of the shocker guns pointed at him, he didn't dare.
"I have a few questions for you, before we take a blood sample," the researcher standing next to him said. She tapped her pen against her tablet for a moment before jotting something else down.
Adam glared at her. "You really expect me to answer?"
"Sure, if you don't want another shock."
Damn it. Adam strongly considered just taking the hit. But even if he could handle one shocker, he couldn't imagine taking on two. Or three.
"What are your abilities?" the researcher asked.
Adam sighed. "Fire."
"Pyrokinesis," she muttered as she scribbled on the screen. "And your age?"
"Eighteen."
A man entered the room, wearing the same black lab coat as the other researchers standing around. He moved to stand next to the woman interrogating Adam. "Is he in the system?" the man asked.
The other researcher nodded. "His subject ID is gamma-six," she said. "We haven't input any data yet, though."
"Are these altered going to the other lab?"
"Yes. They want all the test subjects kept together."
Adam frowned. "Do you have more of us captured?"
Neither of the researchers answered him. The man moved to a nearby table and opened a drawer, and the woman went back to writing on her tablet.
The door opened again, and a security guard entered. "We have a problem," he said.
The researcher lowered the tablet. "Oh god, not another incident." She pinched the bridge of her nose. "If one more thing goes wrong—"
"It's not another containment breach," the guard said. "And the altered are still in their cell. Someone's breaking in."
"Great." The researcher gestured to Adam. "Take him back to the cellblock—" she started.
The guard shook his head. "Building's about to go into lockdown. He'll have to stay here until we locate the intruder."
"Fine. Keep an eye on him, then." The researcher eyed the other guards already standing in the lab. "My team, let's move into the next office."
Everyone wearing a lab coat left the room, leaving Adam alone with five guards. He sank further into the chair he sat in.
A thud came from above them. Adam and the guards looked up at the same time. Guns moved away from Adam to point at the nearest vent opening.
Adam frowned. There was no way a person could fit in there. In fact, he couldn't imagine anything that could come out of the vent could possibly be a threat.
One of the guards slowly moved toward the vent, keeping his gun trained on the grate. He grabbed a nearby chair, stepped up onto it, and signaled something to the other guards with his hand. A heartbeat passed. He grabbed the grate and yanked it open.
A drone flew out.
A different guard fired a shocker. It hit the drone and sent it crashing to the ground. Two guards moved in to investigate while the first hopped off the chair. The remaining two kept their eyes—and guns—on Adam.
The temperature in the room dropped even further. A lot further. Frost crept across the floor from under the door. And then it opened.
A figure stood in the doorway, a white mask with narrow slits at the eyes hiding their face. They wore plain black clothes, had a bag slung over their shoulder, and their long hair was pulled up in a bun. Despite the mask, Adam knew who it was in a heartbeat.
Willow.
The guards didn't move fast enough. By the time they tried to fire their weapons, they'd already been jammed with ice. More ice crept across the surfaces of the guns, forcing the guards to drop them if they didn't want their hands frozen, too.
At that moment, there was a loud beep, and a robotic voice spoke over the intercom. "The building is entering lockdown. Remain where you are and await further instructions."
Willow's hand moved to the wall to her right, where a 'pull in case of fire' switch waited. She yanked it down. It only took a moment for the overhead sprinklers to come on, one of which happened to be directly above Adam. He jumped from his chair and stepped back out of the downpour, but not before the water had a chance to douse him.
Even though Adam was up, the guards were all focused on Willow. They rushed toward her as she lifted her chin. An ice wall rose from the ground between her and them. The first guard to reach the wall kicked it. It crumbled easily, but more ice rapidly formed to take its place.
While the guards broke down the new wall, Willow created a disk of ice in the air in front of her. It shot forward and smacked into the closest guard's forehead. While he went down, it flew into the next guard, and then the next. They dropped to the floor one by one.
Within seconds, they were all down.
Adam ran an arm across his face to wipe away some of the water. "You came to rescue us," he said to Willow.
Willow moved to where the drone lay on the floor, took a moment to examine the shocker that had latched onto it, and shoved it in her bag. "Absolutely not," she said. "I'm after information on SCI."
"Then why come in here?"
Willow didn't answer. She walked toward the lab door. When she reached it, she paused and looked back. "If you want a chance at getting out of here, I'd suggest coming with me now."
Adam wished he could read her expression under the mask. He nodded and jogged to catch up to her. They left the room, passed through another lab, and emerged in a hallway. Sprinklers were on out here, too.
At both ends of the hall, metal doors had fallen shut, cutting Adam and Willow off from the rest of the building. Willow cursed. "I was hoping the fire alarm would override the lockdown command, but I knew that was a longshot."
"The door we just came through wasn't locked." Adam glanced back.
"They're locking off sectors, not every room," Willow said. She sighed. "We'll have to fight our way out."
"We need to stop by the cellblock and get the others," Adam told her.
"We don't have time."
"I can't leave everyone else behind!"
"Fine, I'll help you get to the entrance to the cellblock. But I'm leaving after that. Better hope you dumbasses can get out by yourself." Willow started down the hall. "By the way, I have a few questions for you."
"Questions?" Adam asked as he fell into step at her right.
Two guards emerged from a doorway up ahead and pointed guns at them. "Freeze!"
"Sure." Willow flicked her wrist toward them. Two narrow icicles shot up from the ground to pierce the guard's shoulders.
Adam watched, stunned, as the guns clattered to the floor. Blood spilled from the guards' wounds as they tried to pull themselves free from the ice. "Wow. That was...brutal."
"Oh, sorry, did you want to go easy on the people holding your friends prisoner?" Willow stormed forward, not even looking at the guards as she passed them. Adam hurried after her. He wasn't sure if the guards would still try attacking with their injuries, but he wasn't interested in finding out.
They reached the metal door at the end of the hall. "Keep an eye out behind us," Willow said. "I'm going to have to get into the circuit connected to the door. Might take a minute." She pulled a phone from her pocket.
Adam turned around in time to see the guards Willow had violently stabbed disappear through another doorway, clutching their wounds. She had a point about not going easy on them, but he was still shocked by the ease with which she'd put the icicles in their shoulders.
He didn't have time to dwell on it. Another door opened, and a guard emerged with her gun drawn. She moved toward Adam without hesitation.
Adam stepped forward and sent a blast of fire her way. She dodged, but by the time the fire reached her it was hardly a threat anyway. The overhead sprinklers were still going. Adam moved forward and tried another attack, this time attempting to bend the fire around the worst of the water. It was enough to knock the gun out of the guard's hand.
She scrambled for the weapon. To Adam's relief, he heard the sound of the door behind him swinging open. He turned and followed Willow through the open doorway. Once they were on the other side, Willow filled the doorway with ice, stopping the guard's pursuit.
"Did you say you had questions for me?" Adam asked as they made their way down the next hall.
"Eric has electrokinesis."
Adam frowned. "How did you know that?"
"Scorpion knows," Willow replied.
"Do they know why?"
"I think so."
"Do you?"
"Not yet."
The sprinklers finally stopped.
Adam lifted an eyebrow. "So, your new boss isn't telling you everything."
Three more guards entered the hallway in front of them.
"He doesn't have to," Willow's arm stretched out to the right. A long rod of ice appeared in her grasp. "I can get any information I need."
"You're spying on Scorpion, aren't you?" Adam asked. "You're not really on their side."
"I'm not on anyone's side." Willow lunged forward and swung the rod at the first guard. The rod shattered on impact, sending him crashing to the ground with a spray of ice. "Certainly not yours."
Adam let his hands catch fire and attacked the second guard. It was hard to keep the flames going with his hands still wet, but he managed to wrestle the man's gun from his grasp, leaving burns on his skin as he did. The gun fired as Adam pulled it away from the guard, but the shocker bounced harmlessly off the wall.
Willow sent the third guard to the ground with a disk of ice to the head. She put up another ice wall around the guards. "I feel like I'm doing most of the work here."
"In case you hadn't noticed, it was raining in here up until about a minute ago," Adam fired back.
They started running again. As they turned a corner, Adam asked, "Why not help us take down Scorpion?"
"That sounds destructive," Willow said. "They've got some pretty interesting projects I'd like to keep going." She slowed and gestured for Adam to follow her down a hallway branching to the left. "I'm sure you're keeping that pyramid fragment safe and sound."
Adam searched for an answer that wouldn't give her anything she could use against them. "We sure are."
"What do you plan to do with it?"
She was practically interrogating him. Adam's jaw clenched. He should be using this chance to try getting information from her.
What was that name Malcolm had mentioned to Eric and Sam? Andrew...Hale? Hale, that was it.
"I'm not sure what the Newmans plan to do with the fragment," Adam told Willow. "But it's my turn to ask a question. Does the name Andrew Hale mean anything to you?"
Willow didn't react to the name. After a moment, she said, "No, never heard it. Who is he?"
And now she'd turned it back on Adam. "I don't know," he admitted. "But he's connected to Scorpion, somehow."
"Where'd you hear his name, then?"
"Uh, that Malcolm guy."
"Still got him locked up?" Willow asked.
"Yeah."
"I wouldn't trust him."
"We don't."
Willow glanced back and stumbled to a sudden stop. "Look out!" she warned.
Adam turned, but not fast enough. Someone struck him in the back, between his shoulders. He hit the floor.
Adam rolled over in time to watch Willow dodge the guard's fist. His gun had already been knocked to the floor. Adam grabbed it as Willow narrowly avoided another blow. He took aim at the guard, finger hovering in front of the trigger. He couldn't risk hitting Willow—
The guard's next punch landed. Willow staggered backwards into the wall. Adam took his chance and fired.
The shocker nearly missed the guard, but it latched on to the back of his shoulder. He yelped in pain and grabbed at it as he stumbled sideways. Willow pushed herself away from the wall and extended her hands. The ice rod materialized moments before striking the guard in the side of the head.
"We're almost there," Willow said as the guard collapsed. "Cellblock is just around this corner."
They made it to the metal cellblock door without any more trouble. Any trouble besides the door itself, that was.
"This one's going to be harder to get through," Willow said. Her head turned toward the keypad by the door. "Can you keep an eye out for guards?"
"Sure." Adam turned around to watch the hall behind them.
Willow worked in silence for a minute before speaking again. "Good news for you," she said. "We have more company. SCI's redirecting their forces to the front lawn. Shouldn't be too hard for you and your friends to get out."
"What?" Adam asked, glancing back. "How do you know?"
"I'm monitoring radio signals." Willow pointed to her ear, and Adam realized she had a white earbud in.
He was starting to feel hopeful again. Hopeful enough to start lightening up. "You sure we'll be able to make it out?" he asked. "Even though we're a bunch of dumbasses?"
"All right, you want me to apologize? I'm sorry." Willow looked back at him, and he glimpsed her blue eyes through the slits in the mask. "You're only about...thirty percent as stupid as I thought you were."
"Ha, ha." Adam was somewhere between amused and indignant as he folded his arms. "You know I got into a couple of UC schools, right? I might go to Davis."
Willow turned back around to focus on the keypad. "Well, my number could be a little off," she said. "We never did find out if you passed that calc test."
It took Adam a moment to remember what she was talking about. He'd pretty much forgotten that he'd taken a test that last day at Tyche Point. He had mentioned it to Willow, hadn't he? While they were sitting outside before class...
"Pretty sure I bombed it, to be honest," Adam told her. "I got in on my essays, not my math."
Willow laughed. It was short and quiet, but it was something.
"That was the last good day, wasn't it?" Adam said.
"Huh?"
"Everything fell apart after that." Adam's gaze moved to the ceiling. "We lost our homes, SCI found out about us, Scorpion started chasing us..." He let out a small sigh. "I hated high school, but now? Taking classes online and hoping my mom's okay and that Eric and I won't get hurt every time we go out? I'd give anything to be back there, stressing about a dumb calc test."
Willow was quiet for a long moment. "You really wear your heart on your sleeve, don't you?" She sounded cold again.
Adam lowered his eyes back to her. Time to change the subject. "You know, it's a shame you're not coming back with us. You're missing out on the party."
"Party?" Willow asked skeptically.
"Sure. Big party on our boat," Adam said. "To make up for missing out on spring dance."
"I think you all have a different idea of fun than I do. And I wasn't planning on going to spring dance." Willow stepped back from the keypad. "I thought you would have been able to guess that."
Adam took a step toward her. "Not even if someone asked you?"
"Who the hell would ask me?"
Adam didn't answer. He'd thought about it, that morning they sat outside the school. But he'd also expected she would say no. That she wouldn't want to.
After a moment of silence, Willow looked back.
"Would you have said yes if someone did?" Adam asked.
Willow turned away again. "I'm not coming with you. And no one else wants me there. Trust me."
"You're saving us right now. I'm sure they'll forgive you."
Willow pressed a button on the keypad. The cellblock door swung open. "I'm leaving. Good luck."
Despite his disappointment, Adam nodded. "Thanks."
"You're going to need it," Willow added, more sternly. "Seriously. If you keep running into situations you can't handle, you're going to get caught again. Or killed."
Adam walked toward the door, and Willow passed him as she headed back in the opposite direction.
"I know you think what we're doing is stupid." Adam stopped and turned around. "And yeah, maybe it is. But at least we're trying."
Willow didn't look back. "Goodbye, Adam." She threw a hand up in a half-hearted wave before disappearing around the corner.