This indeed was the road leading to the lower levels. After walking some distance through the passage and dealing with some minor troubles, they quickly found the stairs and elevator down to the lower level.
The elevator was out of the question, decrepit and old, not to mention not suitable for emergency situations.
The group entered the second basement via the stairs. This staircase only led here and did not go deeper. The electrical panel here was still operational, and Su Ming turned on all the lights, making the underground area as bright as day.
The sudden brightness required some adaptation time for the three ordinary people, but they soon realized that the scale here far exceeded their imagination.
In front of them was a vast experimental area encased in transparent glass chambers, at a glance there were at least hundreds, equipped with operating tables and lab desks, which still seemed intact.
"It's all dissection tables, let's pass through here." Black insects were following them, and Su Ming shot them down one by one.
He then spoke to Cindy up ahead, instructing the team to move. The view was obstructed here, and they couldn't see the path leading lower, so they needed to pass through these areas first.
The group moved through the gaps between the glass rooms as if touring a museum, containing various old surgical tools, their bloody marks indicating their use.
Not all of the operating tables were empty; some had grotesque dried corpses on them, indicating that evacuation was abrupt, without time to destroy this place.
The reason was unknown, but Su Ming didn't care.
After passing through the dissection area, they arrived at a thick, solid door. The door was tightly shut, its thickness unknown, with dust obscuring the writing and patterns on the door. How the little monsters they encountered earlier passed through was unknown. There were many possibilities: ventilation ducts, restroom drain pipes, or even revived from the dissection tables.
Beside the door was an old ID card slot, connected to a password panel.
"It's up to you now, open it." Su Ming pushed Barbara's wheelchair to the panel, signaling her to open the door.
She did not hesitate, immediately raising her hands to dismantle the card reader, pulling out a tangle of wires, and retrieving an adapter from her laptop bag, lining them up, and connecting it to her computer.
Barbara's computer knowledge was comprehensive; she wasn't just a hacker, but also very skilled.
"The oldest type of electronic door lock, did the government have these before the '90s? First, simulate the ID card permissions..." Barbara operated her laptop, inputting strings of commands, and quickly acquired the password.
She entered the password on the panel, and the door emitted a 'hiss' sound, rising upwards as dust fell like rain.
What appeared before them was a grim scene.
Beyond the door was possibly a storage room, with numerous cylindrical glass tanks filled with blue liquid, housing various transformed creatures, occasionally supplemented with oxygen bubbles. The monsters had some human features.
The sources of their other half's genes were untraceable, or perhaps they had mutated beyond recognition, with some coiled inside the tanks and others peacefully closed-eyed, as if asleep.
"Are they alive?"
Barbara covered her eyes, peering through her fingers.
Su Ming removed her hand, making her face reality.
"You should tell me, look beside the tanks, every tank has its own control panel. What do the values and indicators mean?"
Suppressing her queasiness, Barbara approached the nearest tank, which contained a fleshy mass resembling a person with bent, deformed limbs, curled into itself, sealed tightly.
Ignoring the grotesque creature, she pursed her lips and began hacking and operating the control panel. The panel looked like a book fixed on a pedestal, with a keyboard and a small screen.
"Human and armadillo gene fusion weapons... capable of curling into narrow spaces for espionage..." she narrated while operating the control panel: "Experiment logs... 320 trials... specimen number... current status... deceased, recommend recreating the specimen."
"An armadillo?" Cindy tapped her shoulder armor with the back of her knife, making a clang: "I remember that's an African animal, right? These people... their taste really is morbid. What's the use of such a thing on the battlefield?"
Su Ming remained expressionless, signaling Barbara to look at the next one, as he answered Cindy: "Usefulness aside, the military always encourages scientists to experiment more, because what if it turns out useful?"
"Heh..." Cindy shook her head, already familiar with the military's habits.
Next, Barbara encountered human-dragonfly hybrids, human-fly hybrids, human-lizard hybrids, and other experimental creations, growing numb with each grotesque sight, feeling her understanding of humanity's moral bottom line dropping with each encounter.
Su Ming intended for Barbara to see more of humanity's darkness, revealing the council's glamorous facade hosting such experiments. Although Deathstroke was infamous, comparing kill counts, who could outmatch the Amazon government?
Perhaps Deathstroke killed innocents, but it was survival in this steel jungle, where jungle laws reigned. But the Amazon Council? Creating such things seemed less like weapons, more like human torment for amusement.
Compared to that, even Cindy seemed like a saint.
Having shown her this, Cindy might receive intelligence support from Barbara in the future, at least avoiding immediate rejection. In other worlds, even Oracle ignored Deathstroke, which would not do.
Besides, intelligence wasn't for free; she would receive payment, providing home budget support. Director Gordon would surely appreciate Su Ming's good idea.
Focus turned back to the room.
Not all the tanks were full; some were visibly shattered, with the contents likely escaped for various reasons. Encounters with them could happen during subsequent actions, and to increase understanding, Su Ming had Barbara begin hacking these control panels.
They stood beside shattered empty glass tanks, contents vanished, and the dried blue liquid, leaving pale blue stains on the ground.
Barbara skillfully ran programs, then began interpreting for them.
"Human and Bat genes... nocturnal weapon... using ultrasound for direction, infiltrating and disabling radar stations... current status: containment breach, contact security department."
Cindy laughed, swaying her weapon back and forth: "Seems we found Batwoman's kin, just wonder how they look."
Su Ming didn't reply, merely pointing upwards at the ceiling where a large brown fur ball was hanging upside down.
"Hmph, a bat is a bat." Cindy drew two pistols, firing at the bat with bullets forming a dense line in the air.
Whether it was avoiding the light or asleep, Batman indeed took several bullets, then let out a strange cry, and started to flutter and fly.