Chapter Ten: The Mission Begins

March 11th, 2027, 6:15 a.m.
Docking Bay 626, K47 Training Facility, Atlantic Ocean

Katia looked at the massive vehicle she and the rest were about to board. Around a large jet was a huge metal casing with propellers, with supports in between the jet and casing. Foles was going to explain what was going to happen inside, “What may look like normal casing around a private armoured jet is actually a submarine. This will carry you to the surface up the ocean at great speed, launching you into the sky. The pilot will then proceed to eject the wings and gain altitude to travel east toward the Indian Ocean. When you reach coordinates you will skydive toward the subject listed in the code. Are there any questions?” Katia and the others stayed silent, answering Foles' question instantly, “I will be in contact with you over your intercoms, but we won’t have connection while you are inside the submarine. This is because the metal is specially designed to keep out any unwanted disturbance toward the pilot. As you probably know this is a very dangerous way to exit the facility, but it is also the only way. To your stations, and Agent Managan, good luck.” They filed into the steel monster of a submarine and into the jet. Katia strapped herself in, and the giant door to the submarine closed. Everything was pitch black, and the only sound was the moving of machinery parts. She felt the submarine angle up towards the surface, ready to launch. There was a lurch forward and they began to move toward the surface at high speed, immediately after the machine left the facility the walls started crumbling in due to water pressure. It was a horrible sound, and Katia now realized why this was such a dangerous way to leave. The K47 Training Facility must’ve been on the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, thousands of feet down, hundreds of pounds of pressure was enclosed around them.

About ten minutes later Katia heard the sound of metal being cut, they were about to reach the surface, and the underwater craft had a sudden burst of speed. The metal casing around them flew behind them and the jet was catapulted out of the ocean. The aircraft was spinning in circles spiraling towards the sky, probably to get more speed. The wings immediately sprouted out of the sides of the jet, and they started rotating back to a parallel position with the horizon. Katia’s eyes were slow to adjust to the blinding glare of the sun's reflection on the ocean. She didn’t realize that she’d been gripping the arm rests until they were calmly streaming across the sky. Katia eased her grip and took a few deep breaths, they weren’t that far from their destination. According to the pilot the jet was now completely invisible, and the metal case was now being defabricated at the depths of the ocean. Katia looked out of her window and didn’t see the wing of the jet anymore, the pilot was right, the jet had gone invisible. This still made Katia wonder how long this technology was here, and how long it had been possible. She looked at her crew mates, all of them including her were dressed in wetsuits and scuba gear. If unit L39 had left something for her to find, it was going to be underwater. She took out the paper that she’d written the coordinates on, and studied the code, there was no way she could bring it with her. She repeated it in her head, trying to engrain it into her brain, so that she wouldn’t forget, “5283756, 5283756, 5283756…”

Just then Sgt. Foles was heard over the intercom, “Agents, by now you should be about an hour from destination. But first we must test and see if all communications are working.” He called out each of their names and they responded accordingly, everything was working. “Agent Managan,” he said, “you may still be trying to remember the code on the paper, am I correct.” Katia grimaced and looked at it, “Yes, Sir,” “Well not to worry, we have the code right here in our database, all we need to do is check if it’s the same. Once you’re underwater we can get the code back to you at any time.” Katia looked at it again and read it to him over her mic, they checked and found the same code, everything was set.

Forty Minutes Later...

Katia looked out her window, there it was, Southern Africa, they were only a few miles away. Soon they would have to jump out of the jet, into the ocean, with two hours of oxygen in their tanks, one to get there, one to get back. Katia looked at her shaking hands, “I may be ready physically, but I’m sure as hell not mentally,” she thought. They were standing out of their seats now, putting on parachutes. Katia held onto a stabilizer next to her connected to the ceiling of the aircraft. The only source of light apart from the windows was a large glowing red light that flashed every five seconds. Earlier it was solid, now it was flashing, telling them they were about to jump. The pilot spoke over the intercom, they were about to fly over the destination, he opened the back of the jet. The light began flashing green as wind ripped through the hydraulic door, and the pilot began to count down. “Five, four, three…” Katia might’ve trained for the jump, but it felt like all she had learned was slipping from her mind. “... two, one, GO!” They all ran single file out the door jumping out to plummet ten thousand feet to the ocean. Katia was probably screaming, but she could hardly hear herself over the air rushing through her ears. The jet was nowhere to be seen, which made sense because it was invisible anyway. Katia struggled to get herself into a good position to use her parachute at the right time. Any minute now the pilot would give them the signal over the intercom, and if he didn’t she was already counting down the seconds in her head. Sure enough she was right, there was no signal, it was left up to them to tell the correct timing. All around her they pulled the strings on their parachute packs, she did the same. There was a small jerk upward then they had a slow descent to the water below. As soon as they landed, the parachutes touched water and immediately disintegrated as if falling onto burning acid. Katia spoke into her intercom, “We’ve made contact,” the water around her was surprisingly warm, she never really thought the ocean was able to be warm, though she never really swam either. Sadly the water quality was always pretty bad, ever since more and more was getting built on land and causing pollution, so it was hard to see. Foles had responded over the intercom telling them to head southeast and in about five minutes they’d come to their destination. Katia followed orders, heading in that direction. Breathing through the scuba gear was coming more naturally as time went on, and she started to calm down a bit. Hopefully they’d be able to find the answers they were looking for, it was only a matter of time. A few minutes later Foles came over the intercom again, “Alright, you are in position, all you have left to do now is dive.” The only question was how deep, they wouldn’t be able to make it to the bottom of the ocean without being crushed by the water pressure. They’d have to cross that bridge when they came to it, for now all that mattered was trying to reach the place they were meant to go. They immediately started descending towards the floor, into the unknown, and what were hopefully the answers…

They’d only been traveling downward for a few minutes when Katia saw it, about a hundred more feet down, what looked like a large metal box. On the side were worn letters saying, L39 Bunker 82, and it did look very much like a bunker, and it was hidden extremely well. Katia swam up to the bunker, trying to find any clue of an entrance. The others followed, doing the same as her. Eventually one of them found a small crack, that looked like closed elevator doors, and they assumed this was the previous entrance. The bunker was strangely built into the wall of a cavern, which made it even more hidden. They split into groups of three and two, one group per side of the doors, and started to pry them open. It was a bit hard at first until the doors opened very quickly, water filling the empty space, the current dragging them inside. Katia turned on her head lamp and told Foles they were in. She examined the small room, in front of them was another pair of doors, just the same as the first. It must’ve been some sort of canal system, one side would open, then close, the water would drain, then the second pair of doors would open. She just had to find the power switch, which wasn’t too hard, but the problem was it wouldn’t work, maybe if they closed the doors. She motioned for them to help her close the doors again, then proceeded to find a way to open the next set of doors. She pulled open the control panel next to the doors, and examined the wires. Most of them were intact, but some were unplugged, and destroyed. They needed to get inside the other room, but couldn’t let the water follow them, they needed some sort of drain. She remembered the small fabricator on her arm, could it conserve matter as well as create it? It was worth a shot, Katia asked Foles how to change the setting, he answered, and then she held it out in front of her. Sure enough the water was sucked out of existence, at least for now, by what seemed like a tiny vacuum that fit in the palm of her hand. They stopped the oxygen flow from their tanks and took off their masks to conserve oxygen for the trip back, and went up to the next set of doors. Once through, the lights in the room immediately flickered on due to motion sensors. Apparently the water had never reached this room, causing no damage of any kind to the electrical system. They searched the room, which was full of random futuristic objects that Katia had never seen before, as well as standard equipment. There was a large table in the middle of the room, which looked as though it could project things above it, and a bunch of files and information was littered on top of it. That wasn’t what caught Katia’s eye though, what did was a strange briefcase over in the left corner of the table, it was Quill’s. She went over and looked at it, it wasn’t a normal briefcase, not formal in any way, there were many decorations and colors all over it. She opened it and immediately a metal casing was blocking whatever was inside, but it was no metal casing, it was a detonator. On the casing was a number pad to enter in a pin, and to the left was the time left to solve the puzzle with sixty seconds counting down. Katia put her hand to the intercom on her ear, “Foles I need the code! Foles the code! Foles!?” there was nothing but static, she was on her own with this one. The others looked at her with wide eyes, the bunker must’ve been messing with their communications, she had to remember. Forty-five seconds left. She jogged her memory, back to the plane, to the note, what was it? Katia closed her eyes, repeating numbers in her head that sounded right. Thirty seconds. She entered in multiple combinations, none of them worked. Twenty. The others looked ready to bail, already putting their masks back on, but Katia wasn’t going to give up. Ten seconds left on the clock, Katia started saying it out loud, “5238756, no wait, 5283756!” She scrambled to type in the numbers, getting it in with three seconds to spare.

She sat down in one of the nearby chairs, her heart racing eighty miles an hour, how they were alive nobody knew. Katia said a silent prayer of thanks then glanced up at the briefcase, which was now completely open. Inside were three files, all labeled the same, but filled with different contents. One had blueprints, another a picture of a man with parted cropped hair and a woman next to him, the last with a picture of what looked like some large droid. They all were labeled Project A.S.O.T.I.L. in bold red letters, Armoured Special Operative Tracing Item L437. Katia looked back at the images, the armoured machine, the blueprints, those made sense, but what did the two others have to do with it? They would have to find out later. They had what they came for, now all they had to do was get back.