2013-01-27 Highway to Hell, part 8: Bakersfield

(Theme song: Velvet Acid Christ - There is no God)
(Continued from Highway to Hell, part 7: Interstate 15)
There isn't much further to go. After the chase down I-15 and the resulting adrenal crash, Domino wound up falling asleep in the passenger seat with the empty grenade launcher resting across her lap. One hand's draped across the top of it, inches away from the grip as though ready to come to and be ready to fight anew at an instant's notice.
That she can fall asleep with the Saleen's engine right behind her head proves just how exhausted the albino woman has become.
The stolen GPS maps out the path right into Bakersfield, to one of the many abandoned oil refineries littered about within the sepia-toned landscape. No lights. No smoke. No sign of any activity. There aren't even any fresh tire marks within the dirt. The rusted chain link fence still holds the giant 'No Trespassing' signs every few dozen feet. Maybe the truck was being guided to a dead drop, yet another piece of the puzzle that would need to be tracked down?
With a start the mercenary woman comes back around, eyes snapping awake and focusing upon the world that has changed around her. A second later and she realizes that her hand has a firm hold of that launcher. Her next breath is held, then quickly released.
"I need you to do something for me, Shift."
"Don't ask questions."
Seems this duo has taken things in stride. Shift had gotten more rest than Domino, and now it was her turn to recover. However, that didn't mean that things were exactly easy going for the Ghanaian.
It had been some time since he'd used any sort of illegal drugs. Cocaine certainly was never something he'd become addicted to, nor really enjoyed... he'd taken the bump earlier simply for the shot of adrenaline. What he -didn't- like about cocaine was its short-lived usefulness.
The S7 speeds down the road, just barely above the speed limit, but the mutant driving it is wound up tight. A fresh beleaguerment has snuck into him with the effects of the cocaine going away, but he's kept awake and alert primarily because of his nerves. Gloved hands squeeze and flex against the steering wheel every so often, while his mismatched eyes dance about the landscape and into the rear view mirrors periodically.
How long would it be before the hammer of law enforcement fell upon them?
Kwabena wasn't afraid of the law. Their pistols, rifles, and assault rifles couldn't hurt him. He'd never been arrested, and he most likely never would be. However, his methods of evasion were unlike Domino's. Where he could simply run and run, taking each bullet with ease, Domino would have to fight her way out.
That would mean dead cops. Good people, just trying to do their jobs.
Eventually, the nerves get the best of him. He refrains from going back to his little stash of blow, and instead, guns the engine up to a healthy 95 mph - an easy pace for the Saleen, but one that would have gathered the attention of any unwanted law enforcement officials. Fortunately, Domino's luck seems to be upon her in proxy. Cars, trucks, and motorcycles are passed in a blur, but not once do they run into a state patrolman hunting speeders.
Not once.
When the oil refinery at last comes into view, Shift drops the Saleen back and lets her idle some distance away, so as not to draw any unwanted attention. He turns his head silently toward Domino - perhaps she would notice him being on edge - and simply stares at her for a few seconds. He had extended such a great deal of trust in his mercenary friend. He hadn't asked questions. He'd kept his mouth shut. He'd come all the way across this God-forsaken country just to help her along.
How much further could he go with this sort of blind trust?
"Fine," he breathes quietly, then releases his hands from the steering wheel long enough to crack his knuckles and kill the already quiet stereo. He looks back forward, eyes studying the abandoned industrial landscape while simply -waiting- for her direction, as much as it has started to bother him.
With tired eyes, Domino looks back to you and holds the stare for a few seconds. Her acknowledgement is to simply dip her head forward slightly, then she reaches over to the keys and remote-pops the trunk before climbing out. The launcher and battle carbine come with her, both getting set into the tiny compartment within the front of the car as she yanks the zipper of her bag open and roots around, coming out with a bead-blasted stainless pump action, the skeletonized stock folded in across the top.
The various choices are weighed within her mind. Stealth? Precision? Penetration?
No. It's time to take a sledgehammer to this sonuvabitch.
She takes the shotgun and a small pair of bands to fit around her bicep, holding a handful of spare olive drab colored shells with matte black steel bases. Military double-ought buckshot.
"Take whatever you like," she offers back to you while double-checking the 500 Cruiser's chamber. "Mission parameters are straightforward. Infiltrate, recon, and gun down every single fucker that you can find."
Ka-CHAK
With the trench left behind and the shotgun cradled within her hands, she starts moving in on foot. This pursuit ends today.
Simple, right?
Domino was always better with the big guns. Shift tends to lose them.
As it were, he adopts for one of the smallest assault rifles left in Domino's arsenal, slinging it over his shoulder while grabbing three spare clips and three hand grenades. The extra gear gets folded into the pouches of his non-descript X-Men uniform (he'd left the one with the big X's all over it at home), which will make it much easier to keep track of that gear when he inevitably transforms into his gaseous state.
Gun down every single fucker that you can find. Right.
Kwabena silently hopes that this is all worth it, that he's doing this for some good reason, not simply to help Domino accomplish some selfish feat of personal vengeance. Every day that's passed, however, has served to convince the African that his worst fears may be coming true. He's helping her do something dirty, without honor.
Regardless, he was a loyal one. Perhaps at the end of this they'd leave paths forever. Perhaps he'd lose his respect for her. Or, perhaps it would be strengthened.
Doesn't matter now. Infiltrate comes first, then recon. Shift looks up high, eyes scanning the upper towers and catwalks of the abandoned refinery. "I will go high," he answers. "Be careful in dere. We -don't- want to start a fire if we can help it."
With that said, Kwabena breaks into a full run toward the refinery's exterior. Then, just before reaching the barbed wire fence separating its grounds from the rest of Bakersfield, he leaps into the air and transforms into smoke form. The assault rifle goes with him, along with the rest of his gear, though his leaping carries that cloud of smoke high and far, soaring in the darkness toward one of those old refining towers until it's simply out of sight.
The Sig 552 Commando. Dom has to smirk slightly, seems like that's rapidly becoming a favorite of yours within her mobile arsenal. It's worth taking note of, but it's something which she can address in further detail later.
That unstable sense of trust, though? That might have something to do with why she brought you along for this run to begin with. An unbiased opinion, favoring against her odds rather than for them. If you really want to know a person... Maybe it's not a chance for you to prove yourself to her so much as it is a chance for her to prove herself to you.
Hopefully she'll still get that chance as the two split up, one going high in a plume of noxious black smoke. This still has a chance of going horribly wrong, and she -doesn't- know what they're going to find on the other side. Something out of nightmares..? Nothing at all?
Setting foot inside of the refinery initially suggests the latter. What equipment of value that could have been easily removed had been stripped out some time ago. The floors are bare, save for a thin layer of dust. Herein lies her first clue, faint patterns marked within the thin film that show where the door had opened before, where feet had roamed this very hallway before. She crouches down and runs a fingertip through the floor's surface accumulation, comparing it to the marks.
Recent.
With a hardened glint in her eyes she stalks further inside, watching. Listening. All that she can hear is the sound of her own passing dully echoing throughout the concrete and steel structure. The sound of her heart thundering away within her temples.
This is more than another job. There's more weight upon this run than anyone else could know. At least within her dark, isolated world.
A low, droning hum begins to grow as she pushes further along, evidence of a generator providing power to some part of the refinery. Further still and there's evidence of artificial lights. The hum grows enough to be felt within the concrete floor, well up into the rafters and upper levels which you had taken to. It's a lot of power being generated, but for what?
The lights are on, but is anyone home?
Momentum carries the significantly less-weighted cloud of Shift in an arc that gradually loses its momentum and begins falling down toward one of the refinery's old crude storage towers. The landing comes without a sound as smoke makes no noise upon 'impact', though bits and pieces of the cloud nearly drop through the grated metal catwalk before reforming into human form.
Immediately, the Sig 552 Commando comes to bear, and with the flip of a switch, its scope extended. Shift uses the scope as a magnifying device, vision split between one eye on the scope and the other out there in the open, using it to catch the refinery as a whole while scanning through the scope for any armed guards lurking around the towers, catwalks, or surface areas of the refinery.
He finds nothing.
Frowning, Shift lowers the weapon and turns to the left, only to vault himself into the air before poofing into smoke form again. The cloud traverses a higher arc as it soars from crude tank to exhaust tower, where upon re-materialization, the rifle comes right back up to bear.
Once again, Shift scans about, finding nothing.
A gloved hand rises to gently touch the earcomm stowed deep within Shift's right ear. "No activity outside," he reports with a -quiet- voice. "Halfway done up here."
Four more times, Kwabena's body leaps from tower to tower, stopping only to scan the surrounding area with the Sig 552's scope.
Still nothing.
"Exteriah is clear," he reports.
"So's the interior," Domino quietly radios back as her sense of caution steps up a few more levels. This..doesn't feel right. Something's here, but it's not quite what she had expected. Maybe she really did get lucky and had a chance to catch this before it fully took root...
That's what she's hoping for.
"C'mon in, you're not going to find anything out there. Look for the generator, whatever's in here will be nearby."
Rounding another corner, she almost takes back what she had just said. She's near the generator. She can see some of what it's powering.
She's not sure that it's anything she wants you to witness.
Five capsules have been pushed up against a wall and bolted to the floor, each one filled with a pale blue fluid. They're six feet tall and two feet in diameter, powered and radiating a chill from the transparent surface. Each one is numbered, though two of them are empty. The other three hold a tiny sphere each, carefully suspended within their centers. Within the spheres are embryos, the shapes roughly human within such an early period of development.
Skin white as a mouse.
"Oh, god," she whispers under her breath. It's already started.
There's still time to reach you. To tell you not to come inside, to keep guard outside.
No. You came this far with her. -For- her. You deserve to see some of the truth. Without it, you may never trust her again.
Look for the generator. "Copy."
Shift begins scanning the structure as a whole, trying to make sense of it all. He'd never read anything about oil refineries in his many years of self education, but he knew a bit about electrical distribution. It strikes him odd that this place has a generator of its own... indeed, his keen eyes are able to locate a nearby electrical substation, but it's not nearly sending enough power to the refinery that might power something -aside- from what he estimates an oil refinery might normally need.
"Why in de hell would dis place need a generator," he mutters under his breath, off the radio.
In due time, Shift makes his way inside. Based on the layout of the refinery, he guesses upon a large building, centrally located and yet just to the northwest of the main area, where the power lines from outside seem to be drawn into the facility. He sneaks in through a ventilation duct, then drops down in smoke form to the floor inside, not too far from Domino's location. The thrumming sound is now audible and easy enough to trace.
With his assault rifle wielded and at the ready, he creeps through the hallways on the balls of his feet, finger hovering close to the trigger.
When he rounds a corner, however, his breath catches cold in his throat. The assault rifle drops slowly until it is pointed toward the floor, his eyes widened, lips clamped shut. For a few quiet moments he stares at the spectacle, and there's no shortage of disturbia in the African's mismatched eyes. Once the initial surprise takes him, he creeps closer, coming about at the edge of the room so that you might see him in his peripheral and not turn to shoot.
No question is voiced, but it is so clear in his eyes, which turn angrily from the capsules and settle an unspoken question upon you.
No words are offered in explanation, either. Domino turns and meets your expression, her jaw set with a hardened, though haunted, look lurking within her eyes. This is what she came here to find. This is what she came here to prevent.
No answers are forthcoming as she marches onward, caution thrown into the wind as her own anger builds.
The five capsules are just the start of the refinery's new purpose, the path opening into a lab environment that had been cobbled together from scrap materials all the way up to much more advanced devices. Cutting-edge. Equipment like what the truck had been hauling on its way across the country. There's even a few open places within the lab where the new gear would have seamlessly fit into place, expanding the owner's options.
It's also within this room where just one man is discovered, sitting in a chair with his eyes focused within a microscope. "I told you people to wait outside and call me, why can you not follow simple instru--"
As he looks away from the lenses and places a pair of glasses back upon his face his expression changes from scorn to shock, shock to an eerie smile. "Now this is most unexpected. What brings you back--"
BLAM!
In a flash the microscope is destroyed. Test tubes and beakers shatter, spilling their contents. Wicked gouges and holes make the metal table look like a poorly designed cheese grater. The man's pristine white labcoat gets splattered with several marble-sized patches of red, shredding his chest and the chair beyond.
He's not dead, yet. He's only starting to wish that he is.
As he slumps toward the floor Domino storms closer, racking a new shell into the chamber. The spent one clicks and clatters across the cement underfoot, discharging a thin wisp of smoke from its carbon-burnt hull.
"Where are the others!" the albino snarls, her voice carrying throughout the facility. In another moment she kicks the man flat onto his back, his office chair rolling away with enough force to bump into another table. Muscles show within the sleeves of her armor, aiming the large bore of her weapon down at his face. "Don't fuck with me, it takes more than one person to organize this!"
With quiet boosteps upon a dusty floor, Kwabena closes the remaining distance with you. While passing the capsules, he briefly takes a moment to visually examine them. Lips curl into a dark frown at the sight, not to mention the cool air coming off the capsules. The chilled air. Something deplorably immoral about it all is clear to him.
Leaving the capsules behind, Shift jerks the assault rifle back up to the ready, covering you as you approach. Each of his quiet footfalls are joined by a slow, subtle crackling sound; the hardening of his flesh, almost instinctive as the anger builds in him and affects his mutagene. It was one thing he had learned to control in almost every circumstance, but this one was, shall we say, a bit extreme. He's piecing it all together, bit by bit.
Kwabena does not flinch when the shots are fired. Not this time. When Domino storms toward the man, he knows exactly what to do. A few quick sidesteps put him out of sight from the entryway, while giving him a clear view and shot upon anyone who might dare to come through. His legs spread just a bit, one leaning up against the side of a RAID hard-drive system, the other braced upon the floor. The rifle remains aimed right at that doorway, though one eye shifts briefly to watch the encounter with divided, vested interest.
The scientist's laugh is strained, blood already seeping into his lungs. Despite it being game over for him, he seems more amused than afraid. "Just couldn't let it go, could you..."
"Seems neither of us could," she growls in response, keeping her full attention on the one mortally wounded man. You had her back. You had to have her back by now.
"You made ..quite an impression with my colleagues, with our superiors, with your last visit," he presses on, his voice already fading around the edges. "When we lost the source, much of the labs..policies changed. The operation was reformed. You don't think they might have had to let some of us go? Budget cuts, you understand."
"You've got forty-one seconds before your brain is too starved of oxygen to speak," she presses in warning.
"And less still..before you pull the trigger..?" comes the challenge, grinning broadly enough to expose pink-stained teeth. "Give me -some- credit, modern technology..one man can go far..much further than an entire team, working within certain..confines. You have to understand, Neena--
The second shot slams out of the Mossberg, the shockwave hammering against the hardened walls of the refinery's interior. What had once been a face is nothing more than gore and debris, the body convulsively twitching within an ever growing pool of blood. When the echo subsides there's nothing but the hum of the generator and the random thumping of shoe heels against the floor, Domino holding her ground even as the spreading crimson flow reaches out to the treads of her boots.
It may have been over, but there's a tension within the woman's body that could nearly rival the hardening of flesh and muscle within your own.
For a long while, Shift simply watches the exchange with one eye trained upon them, the other following the length of his Sig 552. He doesn't drop his guard until you begin walking away, letting him catch a glimpse of what's left over. His face curls somewhat at the disgusting picture, but it wasn't something he'd never seen before.
A flash goes back to Mureybet. The hot sand in his boots, mixed in with the blood of more than forty strangers. Soldiers whose lives had been so quickly and easily taken, by shell, butt and fist. It had been a one man bloodbath, and he'd left more than a few soldiers' heads destroyed in similar fashion.
None of those nameless men had hurt him. They had been intent upon hurting others. However, in a sick way he'd pictured the face of Victor von Doom on all of them. That sneering facade of metal, obliterated into bits of brain and skull in his imagination.
Now, he understands.
The African slowly lowers the rifle until it's at a forty-five degree angle to the floor. There are no questions asked. He'll stand by his word. Instead, he watches you with a quiet sense of understanding and acceptance, before turning to follow. While the odds are there's no one else in this place to offer any threat, he'll stand by his word.
He's got your back.
Seconds pass with nothing happening from the mercenary, though the trance is broken without worry as she sweeps the shotgun around, smashing equipment off of the nearest table. It clears enough of a spot for her to sit upon the piece of steel furniture, gun in her lap, head bowed forward.
Thinking.
"Destroy it," she finally states in a low, weary tone. "The notes, the files, the lab gear, the subjects, the refinery. We're going to destroy it." The woman hesitates, swallowing once on a throat gone dry.
"We're going to destroy -all- of it."
There's still a healty number of charges available to the two. Traces of the oil that used to flow through this facility can work as an accelerant for the inferno she's aiming to create.
Another quick motion brings Domino back to her feet, her boots leaving red outlines wherever she steps. "We leave nothing from this place but a smoking crater. After that, the job's done. You can go your own way."
"With my three thousand dollah's."
Oh, there's more than subtext in that response. Kwabena is, on the one hand, being very clear that he expects monetary payment for this whole mess. He's exposed himself too far too many people, and taken the risk of spreading his 'reputation' beyond the East Coast. Chicago, Cincinnati, Denver, Vegas... places that may no longer be safe havens for him.
Then again, he doesn't need safe havens any longer, does he? He has one, in Westchester County.
The deeper meaning behind his words are the manner in which he speaks them. They are not without a dark sense of humor, as if to suggest that at the end of the day, no matter what personal things he's glimpsed, he is a -friend-. Someone who can keep secrets, and isn't above reminding her that life moves on after this place becomes slag. There is irony in the tone, but there is also comraderie.
Without further adieu, Kwabena readies his rifle again. Rounds are chambered, and he goes to work on the RAID hard drive system, peppering it with enough holes that there's no chance anything could be recovered, even after the drives themselves are turned to molten silicate.
"The primary crude tanks will have thick residue on the interior walls. Dey feed de refining facilities, which are back dat way." He jerks his thumb toward the door into this makeshift lab, then doubles it to the right, indicating the direction in which the primary refining areas should lie. "My grenades will light dem up like a Christmas Tree. Use de heavier charges in here, and out dere."
Without hesitation, he makes to leave the lab. Let her handle the rest in there. He's not about to let her kill the embryos outside, for fear that they might be somehow related to, or clones, of Domino.
He'll handle those himself.
Moments later, there is the sound of rapidly discharging bullets, joined quickly by the shattering of glass, the spilling of liquid, and the hissing of cryogenic material into the air.
"Shit ran a lot deeper than I was expecting it to," Domino quietly admits. Originally it was supposed to be simple. Hit the road, make a few calls, end up right here to kill what amounted to one man. Three grand would have been a pretty good deal for one head, some guy that didn't have any defenses nor put up any amount of a fight. You wouldn't have needed to pull the trigger, even.
Three grand for the moral support.
"You'll get paid." Probably a hell of a lot more than three G's.
With the sudden tearing of fully automatic fire within the enclosed space, she doesn't do so much as flinch. A look of absolute dispassion has settled into place, watching as the sparks fly and bits of metal splinter and tear away amidst a shower of sparks. All of that data, notes, findings, possible leads--gone. Forever lost. She doesn't need them. She already knows where to find the rest.
"Let's make it happen. Ten minutes to prep, then we leave."
When you leave the room she remains standing there, alone in her thoughts. Gripping the shotgun so tightly that her hands ache. With the reintroduction of gunfire from out in the hall she sets her jaw further still, staring off into space as the corners of her eyes start to water.
Something to punch. Something to -shoot.- Some sudden, violent release for the pain that's building up inside of the lone woman. All of it pushed down, packed away. Self control is all that she has in moments like this. She can't afford to lose everything.
The clock's already started. She's got some explosives to set.
Later...
Already the Bakersfield news is hot on the case of a decommissioned oil refinery going up in a massive, and completely unexpected, fireball. The intense blaze is still burning, belching oily black smoke into the clear blue sky. By the time the fire is controlled there won't be any evidence left, not from the lab nor from the catalyst that ignited the facility.
Domino continues to favor silence over everything else. All remaining gear is packed away within the Saleen's trunk. It's going to be a long trip back to Manhattan.
"Time for you to make a choice," she finally says to you, three grand already held up between her fingers toward you, ready to go. You can be certain that more is on its way. "You can get yourself a flight back, or you can come with me. I'll be making a few calls, first offer I get and the car's sold. I'll square up with you once we're back in the city."
It's not like the two can't find one another in a hurry.
Like we said. Better for you to know the man who murdered the embryos than to become that murderer yourself.
Time will show that it was the biggest favor Kwabena did for you in the end.
Kwabena has to pack in everything he's got to set the place up. Three grenades are positioned at the primary oil injection assemblies, the devices themselves used to prop open the valves. Don't ask how he rigged them... it's a bit too dangerous to discuss, but in the end, he knows that they'll go off, one way or the other.
The rest is history.
Money talks, but it has a very limited dialogue. To get a flight, he'd have to work his contacts from afar and procure another false identity... he didn't bring any of his papers with him on this trip. The idea of taking a train only reminded him of the one he nearly blew off its tracks in the Rockies, and the idea of taking a Greyhound across the country? Well.
In truth, he chooses to go with her because if anything, she might need the company. Someone to brood at, complain to, perhaps just someone to sit there and handle a bit of driving.
Snatching the three grand out of your fingers, he stuffs the bills down inside his jacket pocket, then produces a cigarette. "I'm coming with you," he remarks, then flicks a zippo open. The flame is small, but in some way, it symbolizes the burning fireball they've left behind in Bakersfield, California.
That flame touches the edge of the square, and a puff of white smoke is sent blowing out the window.
"And you don't get to bitch about me 'smoking' in de car."
(IC News article: Explosion Rocks Bakersfield (CNN))
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